


scent of quarantine wings

by kamunamis



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medical, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Doctors & Physicians, Eventual Romance, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, M/M, Medical Professionals, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:54:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24210925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kamunamis/pseuds/kamunamis
Summary: After six years of living in Canada, Nao has decided to go home to Japan. He starts his new job as the medical director of Iwatobi Medical Center and he learns quickly that things aren't exactly peachy.Or, the natsunao doctor au that no one asked for
Relationships: Kirishima Natsuya & Serizawa Nao, Kirishima Natsuya/Serizawa Nao, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 33





	1. it's always darkest before the dawn

**Author's Note:**

> welcome to my natsunao doctor au :) it's heavily inspired by the tv show new amsterdam
> 
> would like to thank [sage](https://sagesprouts.tumblr.com) and backstroke 4 dayz for their wonderful support, as well as [tara](https://itsmyusualweeb.tumblr.com) for beta-reading this fic.
> 
> this will be updated whenever i wanna update

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _And every demon wants his pound of flesh  
>  But I like to keep some things to myself  
> I like to keep my issues strong  
> It's always darkest before the dawn_
> 
> Shake It Out, Florence and the Machine

It's six o’clock in the morning when Nao’s flight reaches Iwatobi. He’s extremely exhausted, with the seventeen-hour time difference and jet lag taking a toll on his body. He's been awake for a few hours already, unable to fall asleep. Nonetheless, Nao forces himself to stand up and get out of the plane.

Today is Nao’s first day of work as the new medical director for Iwatobi Medical, Japan’s only public hospital, and he can’t afford to be late.

As he’s leaving the terminal he bumps into a few people, shouting “Sorry!” every few minutes before hastily making his way out of the crowd.

He hails a cab and sighs in relief when he checks the time on his watch to see that he’s still got a little bit of time before he has to clock into work. Not enough time to drop his suitcases off at his hotel though.

_I need to be early_ , Nao reminds himself. _It would look awful if the medical director shows up late or barely makes it on time on his first day_.

“Where to, sir?” the cab driver asks him.

Nao is surprised when the cab driver spoke Japanese, still not used to being in Japan again. He doesn’t need to speak English here. Sure, he was here recently to take care of the paperwork for his job and his apartment, but the dialect still surprises him.

“Iwatobi Medical,” Nao says. The cab driver doesn’t say anything else, and the rest of the ride to the hospital is quiet.

Nao feels nervous, even though he knows he shouldn’t be. This job will be good for him; being a medical director is an incredible accomplishment, especially for someone of his age.

He pays the cab driver the fare and tip once he stops in front of Iwatobi Medical, and gives him a wave of thanks before stepping into the hospital. Nao taps the bell at reception, where a gray-haired man pops up from under the desk.

“Good morning, what can I do for you today?” he greets.

“Good morning,” Nao says. “I'm Dr. Serizawa? It’s my first day here.” He shows him his I.D. card from Canada, although it’s slightly old as his hair has gotten longer over the years.

At first, he didn’t mean to grow it out. He’d been too busy with work to bother with getting a haircut, and it had already gotten to his shoulders when he finally decided to do something about it. By that point, Nao decided he liked long hair better, and now he keeps it in a single braid.

The secretary’s eyes go wide. “The new medical director! Sorry, I didn't expect you to be here this early. My name is Nitori Aiichiro, but people call me Ai.”

Nao waves him off. “It's fine. Where do I start?”

“Well, uh…” Ai pauses to think for a minute and looks at the clock hanging behind him. “Since you’re an hour early, maybe we could start with a tour? Albert, cover for me, Ikuya isn’t here yet. I'm sure you’ve heard that we’re short on staff.”

Albert nods as he moves over to Ai’s desk.

“It’s alright,” Nao answers. He remembers the emails from the HR representative telling him that Kirishima Ikuya is going to be his assistant, and he can’t wait to meet him.

Nao is about to bring his luggage until Ai stops him. “You can leave your luggage here, I’ll page Momo-kun to bring it up to your office, he’s part of security.”

Ai gets up from his seat and starts leading Nao into the hallway and the other areas of the hospital. Ai practically recites the entire history of Iwatobi Medical while walking.

“Nitori-san, it’s okay, I know how the hospital was founded,” Nao reassures him. “I've done my research.”

“Sorry.” Ai looks at him sheepishly. “Dean Amakata says we have to do it whenever we need to give out a tour.”

Nao doesn’t say anything else but reassures him once again with a smile.

They’re in the Neurology wing, according to the sign below the ceiling. Two doctors are talking in the hallway, and Nao recognizes one of them as Dr. Ryugazaki, the department chair for Neurology.

He's somewhat familiar with some of the papers that Ryugazaki has published. Nao makes a mental note to ask him for copies later so that he can read them thoroughly to get a better understanding of him as a doctor. Nao finds it important to connect with his fellow colleagues personally, as it helps him better understand the workplace.

“Dr. Ryugazaki, Dr. Nanase,” Ai calls out. “I'm sure you’ve heard of Dr. Serizawa, he’s the new medical director.”

Both doctors immediately tense up upon seeing Nao, but he manages to retain a calm appearance. Nanase introduces himself as Haruka, and Ryugazaki introduces himself as Rei.

“Good morning,” Nao says. “Nice to meet you both. Rei, I've heard great things about your technique.”

“Likewise. I researched your accomplishments when I found out you were going to be the new director,” Rei says as he bows. “Welcome to Iwatobi Medical, we’re grateful to have you here.”

“Thank you,” Nao says. They chat for a few more minutes before Nao and Ai head off to the other parts of the hospital.

The Cardiology wing is the next one over, according to the signs. Nao’s read the stories that people have told about the Cardiology department, most of them unpleasant, so he hopes to change that as soon as possible.

Nao asks Ai if Dr. Kinjou has shown up to work yet, as he is the head of Cardiology and he is responsible for the problems that this department has created for Iwatobi Medical. Ai just laughs nervously and says that Dr. Kinjou has not shown up in almost a month.

Nao wonders how the Cardiology department has lasted this long without any supervision or order.

“Why don’t you send a phone call to Kinjou after this?” Nao asks. “I need him to come into work today.” Ai nods.

Nao spots two doctors, and Ai is already calling for their attention.

“Dr. Matsuoka,” Ai says, and the two doctors in the hallway turn around, pointing at themselves questioningly. 

Nao didn’t realize that there was more than one Matsuoka working in this hospital. He wonders how confusing it must be for everyone around them.

“Uh, both of you!” Ai stammers.

Both doctors approach them.

“Dr. Matsuoka Gou, chair of Oncology, and Dr. Matsuoka Rin, cardiac surgeon.” Ai points to them.

Nao holds his hand out for them to shake. “Nao Serizawa, the new medical director.”

“Serizawa? Any relation to - ” Gou starts, but Nao cuts her off.

“No, there’s no relation to the Serizawa Company.”

Gou is startled by Nao’s suddenly sharp tone, but she softens after that. “Sorry,” she apologizes.

“Don’t worry about it,” Nao says. It wasn’t professional of him to snap at her anyway. He looks at both of the Matsuokas. “It was nice to meet you both, but Ai and I need to hurry.”

“Serizawa-san! We still have time, you can relax,” Ai says, but Nao ignores him and keeps on walking.

Along the way, they run into more doctors and other personnel. He meets Dr. Shigino, a pediatrician, and his family, as well as the head of psychology Dr. Tachibana. Both of them are quite friendly and welcoming, and Nao appreciates that. He thinks it’s going to be easy to adjust to the new environment.

-

Nao takes a deep breath as he steps into the auditorium.

“Iwatobi Medical has a special place in my heart,” he begins. “It's where I was born, and it’s where I did my first medical internship. No words could ever express how grateful I am for this hospital. How may I help to make it an even better one?”

No one dares to say anything. Doctors look at each other with both worry and exasperation, while others roll their eyes and check their phones. One doctor is rude enough to even walk out. Nao makes a mental note to find out who it was later.

Nao sighs. He didn’t expect much engagement from the staff on the first day, but even this seemed a little bit extreme. “Alright, let’s try this again.

“This hospital has the highest infection and death rate in all of Japan. I'm replacing the attendants for every department. We cannot have untrained residents operating on patients anymore, no matter how much time it saves you. You will be expected to do your jobs,” Nao announces. “Surgeons will be expected to show up for work.”

More than half of the doctors in the room get out of their seats and start calling their lawyers. He doesn’t care. They’re being a hindrance to this hospital.

“Serizawa-san, are you sure about that?” Ai asks sheepishly.

“Yes,” Nao declares before Ai can say anything else. “Those that place precedence on billing over care will be terminated, patients always come first. Now, how can I help?”

Several doctors raise their hands, and Nao starts taking notes on all of their suggestions. Not bad for his first morning as medical director.

“Nitori-san,” Nao says once he’s finished. “Kirishima-san isn’t here yet but I can manage. Thank you for your help.”

Ai nods before walking out of the auditorium.

-

Nao can hear bickering right outside his office door as he’s unpacking some of his things.

“What the hell are you doing here?” a muffled voice asks angrily. “Don’t you have an E.D. to tend to?”

The other person sighs. “Piss off, I have something to ask the new boss.”

“His name is Dr. Serizawa, show him some respect. And you could always tell me, since I'm his secretary, you know,” the original voice spat. “How hard is it to do that?”

“You’re just going to ignore whatever I tell you to do! Like you always do!”

“You asked for a swiveling office chair last time! It wasn’t important business, be happy with the one you have!”

“Everyone has a swiveling office chair, I should get one too!”

“Oh, boo hoo!”

He figures that he should probably intervene before it gets worse, so Nao opens the door. There's a man with teal hair and another man with brown curly hair, whom he recognizes as Dr. Kirishima Natsuya, head of the emergency department.

“I have a job to get back to, Ikuya, this will only take a few seconds,” Dr. Kirishima says.

“Serizawa-san has things to do, it’s better if I give him these tasks now!” the other one shouts.

Ah, so this must be Kirishima Ikuya, his assistant.

Nao clears his throat. “Gentlemen, is there something wrong?”

Ikuya crosses his arms and scowls. “It’s his fault.”

“Hey!” the other doctor interjects.

Nao pinches the bridge of his nose, but exhales a breath. Nothing is going to be solved if he gets upset.

“let’s start over,” Nao suggests. “Dr. Serizawa, how can I help?”

“Dr. Kirishima Natsuya,” Natsuya says with a wink. “I was wondering if you had an extra heart, mine’s been stolen.”

Ikuya rolls his eyes. He doesn’t have time for his brother’s useless shenanigans. “Really? That's all you had to do? Move out of the way.”

“Wait, no!” Natsuya says, his eyes going wide as he pushes Ikuya off to the side. Ikuya yelps, but Natsuya ignores him. “I want to get rid of the emergency’s waiting room, it’ll make things faster for everyone and we can take care of more patients.”

“Done,” Nao says. “It's always important to maximize care, I like how you think.”

“You shouldn’t,” Ikuya mutters, but Nao doesn’t hear him.

“Great! I was bugging the old director about that for months now, so thanks!” Natsuya waves at him before walking away. “If you ever need me, I'm available whenever!”

Ikuya sighs and rolls his eyes. “Word of advice, if you want to be productive, never trust Dr. Kirishima.”

Nao figures it’s better not to ask about it, so instead he changes the subject.

“Kirishima Ikuya, right?” Nao asks. Ikuya nods back. “What’s on my to-do list for today?”

“Dean Amakata is upset that you’ve fired almost all of the attendings, Dr. Matsuoka needs you to sign some paperwork, and - ”

Nao cuts him off. “Which Matsuoka?”

“Oncology, and there’s a patient that’s already prepped for surgery,” Ikuya says.

Nao looks at him, confused. “Isn’t the patient supposed to be in surgery now?”

“Well…” Ikuya trails off. “Kinjou quit so that he could avoid getting fired, and then the entire Cardiology department followed.”

“That’s impossible, there’s gotta be at least one cardiosurgeon in this building,” Nao says.

“Well, Matsuoka’s still here but he’s busy with a consultation right now,” Ikuya says sheepishly.

Nao sighs. “Tell Matsuoka that he’s the new chair for the Cardiology department and to find new surgeons after he finishes the consultation,” he orders. Ikuya nods before paging Matsuoka.

“Walk with me to Oncology,” Nao says once Ikuya’s done paging Rin.

Ikuya is about to argue and say that it’s more important to call Dean Amakata back, but he knows better than to argue with his new boss.

“As if I was going to do anything else,” Ikuya mumbles under his breath.

On their way to the Oncology wing, Nao sees Dr. Mikoshiba Isuzu walking at rapid speed with a suitcase in her hand.

Dr. Mikoshiba is one of the biggest names in medicine, well-known for her outstanding research. She's often seen on television promoting and publicizing Iwatobi Medical, bringing in thousands of dollars with every appearance. Although she is a great asset to Iwatobi Medical, especially for an underfunded public hospital, he knows that Isuzu is a remarkable doctor and that she should be practicing medicine instead of wasting the skills she has.

“Dr. Mikoshiba Isuzu,” Nao says as he runs to catch up to her. Isuzu turns around with a bright smile on her face. “Nice to see you, are you going somewhere?”

“Dr. Serizawa! So nice to meet you. Welcome to Iwatobi,” Isuzu says. “I have to give a speech at a medical conference in Los Angeles and film an interview for Ellen. We should have lunch together when I get back from America, my treat.”

“You’re going to go to America and back on your day off, how impressive,” Nao says sarcastically.

Isuzu laughs. “You’re funny, really. I won’t be back for another four days.”

Nao ignores her. “Things are different now that I'm the new medical director. I expect you to practice medicine because it’s your job.”

“Oh?” Isuzu says, shocked. “Can you afford the publicity I give this hospital? Must I remind you that most of the world still doesn’t believe in public hospitals or that we can provide the same care as a private one?”

Nao sighs and shakes his head, but doesn’t say anything.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a lecture to give in Kyoto before I leave for America,” Isuzu says, walking away from him and Ikuya and exiting the hospital.

He has to admit that he likes her confidence. She's unparalleled when it comes to Oncology and curing patients, and that’s all the more reason why it’s important for her to keep practicing, provided that she actually comes back to Iwatobi.

Nao isn’t going to give up on her yet.

“Serizawa-san, we need to sign Matsuoka’s papers,” Ikuya reminds him as he’s walking in the opposite direction.

“Oh, right.”

-

“Nao,” a stern voice says once they leave the Oncology wing.

Nao turns around to see Miho Amakata, the dean of medicine here at Iwatobi.

“Miho,” Nao says in return.

Miho looks at him angrily. “Don’t say my name so nicely when you know I'm upset with you! It’s your first day and you fired all of the attendings?! The Cardiology team quit because you didn’t like how Kaede did things?!” She pauses when she takes a look at Nao’s appearance. “And why are you in scrubs? You’re the medical director!”

“I'm a doctor, I should always be in scrubs. You’re telling me that you’d rather have corrupt and lazy doctors playing golf and relying on their also corrupt and lazy attendants?” Nao asks.

“Well, no,” Amakata starts, but Nao cuts her off.

“Exactly,” Nao says. “We’ve had three malpractice lawsuits in the past two years, three too many, and they’re all because the attendants are doing the surgeon’s work. By replacing the attendants with those who are not so easily swayed by money, we can make sure we don’t have more of those lawsuits.”

“What about the surgeons?” Miho asks.

Nao shrugs. “They don’t deserve to be working as surgeons if they’re not going to show up or if they’re going to bribe their attendants. It’s a good thing they quit.”

Miho doesn’t say anything.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” Nao says. “I have to attend to other matters.”

-

As Nao and Ikuya walk to the emergency department, Ikuya mentions that his fiance is in one of the beds awaiting a diagnosis.

“How long has he been waiting?” Nao asks him.

Ikuya checks his watch. “Two hours.”

“Two hours?” Nao asks, just to confirm. Ikuya nods. “Why hasn’t he been admitted yet?”

Ikuya leads him to where his fiance is, and Haruka from Neurology is already with him.

“Dr. Serizawa! I'm Tono Hiyori, the hospital’s lawyer and Ikuya’s fiance,” Hiyori introduces himself. “Dr. Nanase doesn’t seem to understand what dizzy means.”

“Nanase-san? Care to explain?” Nao asks, crossing his arms. Patient care should be as efficient as possible, and Haruka doesn’t seem to be efficient right now.

Haru doesn’t pay attention to him, instead turning to Hiyori.

“Explain what dizzy means to you,” Haru says calmly.

Hiyori grumbles. “It's dizzy! I swear, I should've just walked out of here earlier and gone to work.”

“Then why didn’t you?” Haru asks.

“Because I feel like I want to vomit, I'm very shaky, and I fall over whenever I try to stand up!” Hiyori barked.

“You just described the symptoms of hypoglycemia. Now we can admit you and get you back to work in no time,” Haru says. “If you had told me earlier that those were your symptoms, you wouldn’t have wasted your whole day here, Tono.”

Hiyori gulps and turns bright red. “Fine, whatever.”

Well, that’s one less problem for Nao to solve.

“Does Nanase-san have a problem with Tono?” Nao asks Ikuya.

Ikuya shakes his head. “I don't know. Hiyori won’t tell me anything about it.”

Nao doesn’t bother prying for more information.

“I'm gonna take my lunch break and check up on him if that’s alright with you?” Ikuya asks. Nao tells him to go ahead.

In the corner of his eye, he sees Natsuya standing in front of the main computer with his hand in his hair as he enters information. His eyes are red as if he’s been crying.

“What’s wrong?” Nao asks him.

Natsuya wipes his eyes and sighs. “A girl needs a lung transplant and she’s ineligible for the transplant list, so it’s been a hassle trying to find a direct donor. It’s ridiculous how undocumented people can’t get basic fucking care here.”

Nao chooses to ignore Natsuya's sudden burst of profanity.

“Are you alright? You seem distressed,” he asks.

Natsuya shrugs. “I guess. She just reminded me of Ikuya when we were younger. happy and bubbly, but also very resilient.”

“Are you two brothers?” Nao asks.

Nao hadn’t figured out that they were brothers, or even relatives, with their different appearances, but now that Natsuya’s told him, he can see it in their eyes. He supposed he should’ve figured it out with their last names.

Natsuya nods. “Yeah, we were close for most of our lives up until a few years ago, when we started working here.”

Nao instinctively puts a hand on Natsuya's shoulder, despite having only met mere hours ago. when he realizes, he takes his hand away.

“Sorry,” Nao apologizes. “Force of habit. I tend to comfort people this way.”

“No, you’re fine.” Natsuya waves him off. “I'm being ridiculous, aren’t I? I'm still worrying about him even though he’s an adult and he can take care of himself.”

“You’re not,” Nao reassures him. “I don't have any siblings of my own, but the dynamic I have with my family isn’t great either.”

“It’s just....I've always looked after him. I don't understand why he’s upset with me,” Natsuya explains. “Whatever it is, I'm trying my best to fix it.”

“I'm sure he’ll come around eventually,” Nao reassures.

Nao gets a page from Neurology, and he feels awful for having to leave Natsuya right now.

“I have to go, but I hope everything goes alright with your patient,” Nao says as he stands up.

Natsuya meekly smiles at him. “Thank you, Serizawa-san.”

“Nao is fine.”

“Thank you, Nao.”

“Welcome.”

Nao’s determined to help Natsuya out any way he can, because he thinks he should be able to support his fellow staff as the medical director. 

-

A few hours pass and Nao heads back to his office to try and pull some strings for Natsuya. Unfortunately, he gets interrupted.

“What the hell, did you call my driver to come back to the hospital?!” Isuzu says angrily, barging into Nao’s office and ignoring the fact that Nao is in the middle of a phone call.

Nao sighs. “I'll call you back later.”

He hangs up the phone and turns to face Isuzu.

“No, I called _our_ driver to come back to Iwatobi, because he works for Iwatobi and so do you, Dr. Mikoshiba,” Nao points out.

Isuzu just glares at him. “Why does it matter to you so much?”

“I know that you are a capable doctor. I don't understand why you would choose to give lectures to semi-retired physicians instead of actually caring for patients,” Nao argues. “Don't you miss practicing medicine? Or talking to patients and seeing how happy they are when they’re cured? Or even patients that you enjoy seeing all the time?”

“I'm not trying to guilt you into staying. In the end, it’s your choice, but I want to remind you that you’re at your best when you help people.”

Isuzu doesn’t say anything.

“Come back in two days or don’t bother showing up to work,” Nao says sternly.

Isuzu just turns around and leaves the room.

-

Nao finds Natsuya sitting in the break room scribbling on a napkin.

“There you are!” Nao says, and Natsuya jolts.

“I've been looking for you all over, why didn’t you tell me you were on your break already?” Nao continues, but pauses when Natsuya shoves the napkin in his mouth. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Definitely not forging your signature,” Natsuya says, muffled.

Nao just shakes his head and tries hard not to laugh. He’s here for work, not for play.

“Anyway,” Natsuya says, taking the napkin out of his mouth and tossing it into the garbage. “What do you need me for?”

“Oh!” Nao remembers. “The patient you had earlier that needed a lung transplant? She’s going to be alright. After several phone calls, I was able to find a donor that would be willing to donate.”

Natsuya sighs in relief. “Thank goodness. Thank you for all of your help too, it means a lot.”

“I'm just doing whatever I can,” Nao says. “If I have the power to help someone out, I always will. I suppose that’s why most of us picked working for a public hospital instead of a private one.”

Natsuya laughs. “I guess so.”

-

As Nao leaves his office a while later, he can hear his name being called out.

He turns around to see Natsuya behind him, who rushes to catch up to Nao.

“How was your first day at Iwatobi?” he asks.

Nao gives him a thumbs up. “It was great! I can't wait to continue working with you and the rest of the staff.”

“That’s good to hear, none of the previous medical directors were ever this excited to work here,” Natsuya mentions. His face falls when he notices Nao’s luggage.

“Why do you have your suitcases with you?” Natsuya asks as they walk down the hallway.

“I didn't have time to drop them off at my hotel after my flight landed,” Nao explains.

Natsuya doesn’t say anything more about it, instead more focused on the bird keychain hanging from Nao’s suitcase.

“Birds! Birds are cool!” Natsuya says excitedly. “Is there any meaning to the bird?”

Nao laughs softly. “No, not really. I just wanted to remember which luggage was mine.”

Natsuya laughs as well. “Well, I like it.”

They continue walking down the hallway and toward the exit.

“Do you know how you’re going to get home? Taxis are rare at this time of the night,” Natsuya says.

_Huh_ , Nao thinks. _Do I even have enough money for a trip home if I called for a cab right now?_

“Calm down, I could practically see the gears turning in your head,” Natsuya says. “I don’t mind taking you home.”

Nao looks at him apologetically. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking about it earlier. Only if it’s not too much of an inconvenience.”

“It happens,” Natsuya reminds him. “We’re all human, we forget to plan. I tend to take people home most nights anyway.”

Nao follows him out to his car in the parking lot, and he’s immediately jarred by how _fast_ Natsuya is driving. Not that he would say anything about it, since he figures he should be grateful that Natsuya has even offered to take him home in the first place.

“Well,” Natsuya says once he pulls up to the building. “Take care.”

“Yeah, you too,” Nao says. “Get home safely.”

Natsuya winks before speeding off.

When Nao unlocks his door, he leaves his suitcase next to the kitchen, and opens the refrigerator, only for it to be empty. Nao sighs and puts a reminder to buy some food for himself after work tomorrow.

He’s too exhausted to take a shower, and he doesn’t have a bed in his room yet, so he collapses onto the couch, falling asleep instantly. 


	2. show me luck, show me fate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _So watch me now as I start fires in the dark  
>  Show me luck, show me fate, show me any escape  
> I start fires in the dark  
> Burning bridges and hearts to the ground_  
> AS IT IS, The Fire The Dark

Nao wakes up to the sound of his blaring alarm the following morning. He groans as he reaches for his phone sitting on the coffee table. He presses the ‘stop’ button and sighs when he sees that his phone is about to die. 

He scrambles to find both his power adapter and his phone charger in one of the many boxes scattered throughout the apartment. Nao takes a breath of relief when he does find it eventually, plugging it into the wall outlet.

Nao heads to the bathroom to get ready for the day, fixing his braid so that his hair stays out of the way. He washes his face and brushes his teeth before hopping into the shower. He scours the boxes once again to find his work clothes once he’s done. There are wrinkles all over the shirt, but he decides that it’s the least of his concerns.

“The coat will cover it up anyway,” Nao mumbles to himself before buttoning his shirt up. He finds his hospital I.D. on the coffee table and clips it on before taking his phone out of the charger when he sees that it’s almost fully charged, ready to head to work. He double-checks his wallet to make sure he has enough yen to take a taxi cab this morning, reminding himself that he needs to head to the bank and convert his leftover Canadian money.

Nao locks the door behind him and walks down to the elevator. He looks to his right and sees that it’s still dark outside. He wonders how his friends in Canada are doing. He steps into the elevator when it opens and patiently waits for it to reach the ground floor. Nao hails a taxi and tells the driver to drive to Iwatobi Medical.

He looks out the window throughout the taxi ride. He’s missed the scenery of Japan. It looks pretty at night, and even in the morning too. He likes Toronto, but it’ll never compare to Japan, and he’s happy to be here.

“We’re here,” the driver tells him, and Nao pays for the fare before heading out of the car and walking into the hospital.

Nao makes sure to clock in, and he’s pleasantly surprised when he sees Isuzu placing her things in the locker.

“I’m happy to see you here,” Nao says, accidentally startling her.

Isuzu laughs nervously. “Yeah. I thought about what you said, and I decided it was time for me to stop being selfish.”

“Well, good. I’m glad,” Nao says, smiling slightly. “Good luck today. Let me know if you need anything.”

Isuzu nods, and Nao shuts the door to his locker before heading out. Ikuya catches him while he’s walking and hands him a stack of papers.

“You should probably fill these out within the next millennium,” Ikuya says sarcastically. Nao glares and takes a glance at them. None of them seem to be immediate, so he hands them back to Ikuya.

“They can wait, I’m going to check up on our other patients.”

Ikuya rolls his eyes.

Nao is passing by the Oncology department when he suddenly hears some shouting. It’s Isuzu and Gou. He folds his arms and clears his throat, and the two women stop fighting.

“Care to explain?” he asks.

Gou sighs. “She’s trying to take my patients!”

“I’m not! I’m just trying to help out here,” Isuzu says, holding her hands up in defense.

“Maybe you should’ve done that earlier.”

Nao pinches the bridge of his nose. He didn’t think this through very well. “Mikoshiba is just trying to do her job to help you out. Figure out which patients will allow her to see them.”

The two of them look at each other, and Gou glares.

She huffs. “Fine, you can take the walk-in patients and anyone else who might want an earlier appointment.”

“Thanks,” Isuzu says, and the two of them head their separate ways.

Nao walks down the hall, and he suddenly feels an elbow on his shoulder. He turns to see Natsuya.

“Natsuya, hi,” Nao says.

Natsuya smiles brightly. “So glad you’re here for another day. We had a director a few years ago that only made it through the first day before quitting.”

“That doesn’t sound like very good management,” Nao says.

Natsuya laughs. “Ah, yeah. Like I said, the previous medical directors kinda suck. Hey, what do you say about the both of us getting lunch together later today?”

_ It’s cute how laidback and confident Natsuya is _ , Nao thinks. “I wouldn’t mind eating with you,” he answers. 

“Cool, cool.” Natsuya whistles and snaps a finger gun at him. “I’m gonna head back to the emergency department, but we can meet in the cafeteria - ” He’s interrupted by shouting and fighting in the opposite direction.

Nao sighs and rushes over to where the sounds are coming from. The fight is between Rin and another doctor. He could barely hear exactly what they’re arguing about, but it doesn’t sound very good.

He and Natsuya approach them.

“Gentlemen, what seems to be the problem?” Nao asks.

Rin huffs. “We’re fine. There’s nothing to worry about.” He walks away, and Nao is more confused than he was before.

He turns to look at the other doctor. “What about you?” Nao takes a good look at his nametag, which reads ‘Yamazaki Sousuke.’

Sousuke shrugs. “He’s always like this. Sorry for the disturbance. Hi, Natsuya.” He bows before walking away.

Nao turns to Natsuya, who’s snickering in the background. “What?”

“It’s always funny whenever he’s being awkward,” Natsuya explains.

“Who is that?” Nao asks.

“Sousuke is one of the cardiologists here.”

Nao doesn’t say anything else about it. Instead, he changes the subject. “Is there a lot of infighting here?”

“Yep,” Natsuya says. “But we’re a family though, even if we fight all the time.”

“You’ve been here long enough, do you know the reason why they fight?” Nao asks.

Natsuya shrugs. “They got married, and then divorced, and now I don’t really know what the fuck is going on between them.” There’s a buzzing noise on his pager. “Ah, shit, I really gotta go now, catch you later!” He waves before running in the opposite direction.

Nao stands there for a moment until a voice comes up from behind him.

“Have you done the paperwork yet?” Ikuya asks.

Nao turns around, startled. “I’ll start it right now,” he says, a passive-aggressive smile on his face as he heads up to his office. Ikuya doesn’t bother following him.

Dr. Tachibana comes up to him while he’s walking.

“Tachibana-san, how can I help?” Nao asks.

“Makoto is fine, thank you. I… um… I feel really awkward asking for this.” Makoto scratches the back of his neck.

Nao waves him off. “Don’t be. As long as it's going to benefit the hospital I don’t have a problem providing it for you.”

“Well, the thing is… we don’t have many therapists that are trained in CBT and DBT,” Makoto says. “A lot of patients here at Iwatobi would definitely benefit from that.”

Nao hums in agreement. “I’ll look into that as soon as possible. Thanks for telling me.”

“Ah, you’re welcome,” Makoto says. “Thanks again!” he adds before turning away.

When Nao gets to his office, he adds a note in the budget forms to hire new therapists with training.

-

He’s in the middle of filling out his paperwork an hour later when he hears a young child crying outside. Nao gets up from his desk and sees a little girl standing outside the room wiping her eyes. She has bright red hair with hairpins on both sides of her head. She’s wearing a beige jacket, though the sleeves appear to be wet from her tears.

Nao approaches the child slowly. “Hi.”

“Hi,” the girl says softly, looking up at him.

“I’m Nao. What’s your name?” he asks.

The girl looks up at him. “Aya.”

“Okay, Aya. Where are your parents?” Nao asks.

Aya shrugs. “My dad is here somewhere. Come help me.” She takes Nao by the hand before Nao could say anything else.

“Do you remember what you and your dad were doing before you got lost?” Nao asks her.

Aya thinks for a moment. “He was on one of the beds, and then I had to pee so I left. After I got out of the bathroom I didn’t know where to go, so I kept walking.”

Nao thinks about the layout of the hospital, and it hits him that she’s talking about the emergency department. “Come with me.”

Aya nods and follows him back to the emergency room, where she recognizes her dad immediately. “Papa!” She runs over to her dad and hugs him.

“Thank you,” her father says.

“Of course.”

He turns away to get back to his paperwork when Natsuya creeps up on him once again.

“Well, hello again. If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve thought that you’re stalking me,” Natsuya says, winking.

Nao laughs softly. “No, I was just helping the young girl find her father.”

“Nice. Man, you should’ve been here earlier when I had to deal with a patient’s broken arm. It was sticking out and everything!” Natsuya says, waving his arms around. “I mean, I’ve seen tons of them, but like  _ wow  _ do I love looking at bones.”

“That… definitely sounds like something you’d be interested in.” Nao glances at the clock on the wall. “Oh, do you wanna go for lunch right now?”

Natsuya beams. “Yeah, that sounds great. Let me finish filing the reports first.”

Nao nods and scans the area to see if there are more patients that might need help. One patient asks for more morphine and another patient complains that their foot is itchy. He administers the morphine and finds a fan to dry the other patient’s cast.

He waits for Natsuya in front of reception.

Natsuya comes up to him. “Are you ready?”

“Yeah.”

The two of them walk to the cafeteria together.

“So I asked this yesterday, but how are you liking Iwatobi so far?” Natsuya asks as he grabs one of the tongs to serve himself food. He hands the tongs to Nao once he’s done, and Nao serves himself.

“Are you just going to ask me every day how I like Iwatobi?” Nao asks. “I grew up here, remember?”

“Oh, yeah,” Natsuya says, remembering the staff meeting from the day before. “Well, it’s pretty cool that you’re back now, otherwise we wouldn't have met.”

Nao laughs slightly, and the two of them take their seats at one of the tables. “Yeah. I mean, I knew I was going to come back to Iwatobi at some point, but I’m glad that I chose now.”

“Is it because of me?” Natsuya asks teasingly.

“Absolutely not. I’m sure you’re a great person when you’re not this annoying,” Nao teases back.

Natsuya pretends to be offended. “Excuse me, I’m a queen.”

Nao laughs, and the two of them continue eating their food until they’re done. The two of them sit there and chat about things that have happened in the hospital. Natsuya tells him the story of how he thought the hospital was haunted after hearing the sounds of a mouse running through the vents.

“You seriously thought that the hospital was haunted?” Nao asks, cracking up.

Natsuya flushes. “What else was I supposed to think?!”

“I don’t know,” Nao says. “If this hospital ever does get haunted though, you’re going first.”

“Rude.”

Both of them are laughing until their stomachs hurt.

-

Nao is about to head back to his office to fill out the rest of the paperwork when Ikuya suddenly approaches him.

“I’m heading back to my office right now, Ikuya,” Nao says.

Ikuya shakes his head. “Not that, although I’m glad you’re finally going to finish the paperwork. Amakata called. She’s asking why there’s a note on the budget plan to hire four new therapists?”

“Because the hospital needs them, next question?” Nao answers. He opens the door to his office and sits down at his desk. Ikuya follows him.

“You’re making my job harder for me,” Ikuya complains.

Nao doesn’t look up from the papers sitting on his desk. “Not my fault that the hospital needs a lot of fixing.”

“Amakata says that the hospital was fine the way it was,” Ikuya says boredly.

Nao looks up at him. “Look, I know this isn’t the most traditional way of doing things, but if there’s a way for me to help people then I’ll gladly do it.”

Ikuya doesn’t say anything else on the subject, sighing. “Okay. You should probably call Amakata back though. She’s been trying to call for a few hours now.”

“Thanks.”

Ikuya leaves the office, closing the door behind him. Nao’s about to call Amakata when the door opens once again.

Nao looks up, expecting to see Ikuya again, but this time it’s not him. Instead, Isuzu is standing in front of the door.

“Mikoshiba-san,” Nao says. “Come in. Can I help you?”

She nods, and shuts the door behind her before sitting down in front of him. “I need your help.”

Nao smiles at her. “What’s up?”

“First, I’m glad that you helped me get back to my job. I forgot how much I enjoyed working with patients even though working in Oncology is full of death.” She pauses and takes a deep breath before continuing. “Second, I’m not entirely sure how to work with Matsuoka. While I think her ideas are wonderful and intelligent, I don’t think that they benefit patient care all too much.”

“Have you two discussed why you disagree with each other’s plans?” Nao asks. He’s used to doctors not getting along with each other, as it happened all the time at his old hospital. He supposes he could give at least  _ some  _ valuable advice. 

Isuzu shakes her head. “I don’t know if that’s the best idea. I’m not sure she would listen to me.”

“Maybe not,” Nao says. “But I think that it would be helpful. I’m not saying that you have to agree with her opinion and vice versa, because in the end you two are allowed to treat your patients in the way that you feel is best fit, but it may help you alleviate the tension or help you understand where she is coming from.”

“Ah, thank you,” Isuzu answers. She starts tearing up. “I’m sorry if this is weirdly personal for you, I just… I thought you would be a good person to ask advice.”

Nao waves her off. “No, don’t be sorry. I said I’m here to help, right? I mean it.”

“I… um… thanks again.”

“No worries.”

Isuzu wipes her tears away before standing up and walking out of the office. Nao notices the phone is out of its holder and remembers that he’s supposed to call Amakata right now. She doesn’t end up picking the phone, and Nao decides that he can worry about it later, instead focusing on the rest of his paperwork.

-

After Nao finishes the paperwork, he ends up going around the hospital to help the other doctors before heading to the cafeteria to get lunch.

He’s stopped by Natsuya, who’s carrying a tray of food. Nao wonders how Natsuya has so much time on his hands to run the ED as well as roam around the hospital.

“Oh, good! You’re here!” Natsuya says. “I hadn’t seen you in since lunch so I thought I would bring food for you.”

“Thank you.” He checks the time on his phone to see that it’s already seven at night. The time flew by quickly.

The two of them decide to sit on the couch in his office, even though the corner is dimly lit. They’re in a comfortable silence together. It’s nice having a friend at the workplace. The only friends he had in Toronto were his roommates Suga and Daichi - though he was third-wheeling them most of the time.

“Hey, quick question,” Natsuya says with his mouth full, breaking the silence. “How do you feel about mackerel?”

Nao looks at him questioningly. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Answer the question first,” Natsuya says, his mouth still full.

Nao rolls his eyes. “I think mackerel is a good dish if you prepare it well. It’s full of omega-3 fatty acids, which are important for the body, but it could definitely spoil easily if you don’t prepare it properly.”

“Cool, cool.”

“What’s this about?” Nao asks.

Natsuya shrugs. “It’s an inside joke, debate, whatever, around the hospital. Nanase likes to cook mackerel for his ‘not-boyfriend’ and the rest of the staff like to talk about it sometimes. Personally, I think there are better dishes to cook for significant others, but it works for them.”

“Ah.”

He’s heard the stories of how Nanase and Tachibana are oblivious toward each other’s romantic feelings. Natsuya told him that they’ve known each other since they were in diapers, and Nao wonders just how oblivious they really are.

They continue eating in silence until Natsuya finishes his meal.

“Well,” Natsuya says, standing up. “I think I’m going to head home now since it’s getting late, but I hope you get home safely.”

Nao nods. “I hope you do too.”

Natsuya walks out of the room at the same time that Ikuya walks in. 

“Ikuya,” Nao says. “What’s up?”

“I needed to confirm with you about some meetings.” Ikuya hands him a tablet and Nao signs off on all of the meetings, even if he doesn’t particularly like them. He’d rather be helping out patients. “You know Natsuya is just flirting with you, right?”

Nao shrugs. “I think he’s nice.” He hands the tablet back to Ikuya. “Maybe he is flirting with me, but I’m not going to stop being nice because of that.” He smiles at Ikuya, and Ikuya grimaces.

“Okay. Take care, Serizawa-san,” Ikuya says before walking out of the office. 

Nao checks the hospital one more time before he goes home, helping out some of the nurses with their patients. He calls the private driver for Iwatobi Medical and tells him to drive to his apartment complex.

It isn’t until he’s almost in the parking lot that he remembers that he needed to buy food today. Nao sighs and tells himself that he could get it some other day.

He’s grateful that the second day went just as well as the first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cries* i love natsunao and stupid ass medical dramas


	3. a higher self deep within

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> school got busy, and then i didn't like my pre-written chapters, but oh well. decided i would take the plunge and post chapter three to motivate myself to write more of this fic. I'm going to revisit my outline/the other pre-written chapters and see what i can improve on

A week has passed since Nao first started working at Iwatobi again. He thinks he understands how the hospital runs and how all of the doctors’ personalities are.

Almost. Natsuya is… an enigma.

The door swings wide open in the middle of a video conference one afternoon, and Nao looks up to see Natsuya smiling brightly. Nao’s observed that it never seems to be a good sign.

Natsuya sits on the chair in front of Nao’s desk and starts talking. “Hey, Nao! Guess what, you should’ve been there while I was poking out this one patient’s foot! There was so much blood and fungus and it was green and gooey, but all fungus is like that, so what was I expecting - “

Nao sighs. Of course, this has to happen in the middle of a video conference. “Natsuya.”

Natsuya ignores him and keeps talking about the patient’s fungus in great detail, making Nao wince.

Nao calls his attention once again. “Natsuya.”

“Hm?” Natsuya stops and looks at him curiously.

“Look behind you.” Nao points to the TV screen behind him, and Natsuya waves at the screen before Nao shuts it off. Is it wrong to be grateful that Natsuya interrupted the conference because Nao didn’t want to sit here for hours getting nothing done? Probably, but at least he has more time for patients. Nao questions why he was in the video conference in the first place since it was mostly a discussion meant for other departments. 

He sets the remote off to the side and looks up at Natsuya. “How can I help you today?”

Natsuya leans his elbow on the table, propping his head up on his hand. “Remember when you said that you were gonna get rid of the waiting room to increase efficiency?”

Nao raises his eyebrow. “I thought I did that already?”

“Well, yeah.” Natsuya pauses and plays with the mug full of pens on Nao’s desk. “But you forgot to hire more nurses so that it would actually work.”

“You didn’t say anything about new nurses,” Nao says, confused. He pulls up the budget plan to make sure he didn’t accidentally forget that step.

Natsuya pinches the bridge of his nose. “Ah, shit.”

Nao grabs a sticky note and makes a note to hire more nurses before sticking it on top of the budget plan. “I’ll take care of it for you as soon as possible.” He crosses his fingers that Amakata will approve of the plan.

Natsuya snaps a finger gun at him. “Thanks. You’re a darling.”

“No problem,” Nao says. “How’s your day been?”

Natsuya beams. “Great. A few of my patients are improving. Someone else had a really nasty lump but I cauterized the wound so he’s fine now, I think.”

“You think?” Nao asks, looking at him skeptically.

Natsuya waves him off. “I bandaged him up and his parents took him home once I signed the discharge papers. Whatever happens next, happens.”

“Did you at least instruct them how to care for the wound at home?” Nao asks.

Natsuya nods. “I did, I swear.”

“Good, good. What did the dermatologist say about the lump?”

“An exploded blood vessel or something. I don’t know, I just handed them the forms.”

Nao laughs.

“You think I’d be a good dermatologist?” Natsuya asks, twirling his fingers with one of the pens in Nao’s mug. “I mean, I love looking at the disgusting stuff that shows up. It’s so weird and cool that our bodies do that stuff!”

Nao looks at him skeptically. “I don’t know how to respond to this.”

“Neither do I,” Natsuya says. He sticks the pen back into the mug. “I just spout whatever comes to my mind and hope it won’t bite me later.”

Nao shakes his head. “Out of all the people that befriended me on my first day, it had to be you.”

Natsuya beams. “I’m an angel, you like me.”

Nao looks Natsuya in the eye. “Maybe so.”

There’s a beeping noise, and Natsuya’s expression turns sour. “Ah shit, I gotta run to the ED. Something about a recall.”

 _Recall?!_ Nao wonders if he should follow Natsuya to help him out, but he decides in the end that he trusts his judgment.

“See you,” Nao says, and Natsuya runs out of his office.

Nao is about to start up the video conference once again when suddenly the door swings wide open.

“Natsuya, what do you - ” Nao looks up and notices that it’s Ikuya. “Oh. It’s you. What’s up?”

“Matsuoka is fighting with another doctor again,” Ikuya says. “Some of the patients are complaining.”

“Which one?”

“Rin,” Ikuya deadpans.

Nao shakes his head and walks out of the room. He walks up to the Cardiology department and barges into Rin’s office. He clears his throat, and Rin promptly lets go of Sousuke’s collar.

“Serizawa-san,” Rin says, mortified.

Nao smiles. “A word in my office, please, Rin?”

Rin grumbles and the two of them head back downstairs to Nao’s office for the second time that week. Rin takes a seat in front of Nao while Nao paces back and forth behind his desk.

“You know why you’re here, right?” Nao asks.

Rin huffs. “It’s not my fault that Sousuke wouldn’t listen to me.”

“Y’know, I could be out there helping patients around the hospital and assisting the nurses that might need my help,” Nao says. He turns to look at Rin sternly. “Do you know why I’m not doing that?”

Rin gulps. “Because you’re talking to me.”

“Exactly. Glad you could keep up,” Nao says. “This better not happen again. I don’t care what kind of animosity you have with Sousuke, I just need you two to get along at work, otherwise you’re going to get fired, and I don’t think either of us would want that. Do you understand?”

Rin nods. “Yeah.”

“Good.” Nao sighs. “Is there anything else you want to talk to me about?”

“Yeah, actually, can I get the sign on my door replaced? No one can find my office because everyone thinks that Kinjou is still the head of Cardiology,” Rin mentions.

Nao had forgotten about the sign. He moves a strand of hair out of his face and pushes his glasses up. “Go ahead.”

“Thanks.” Rin stands up and heads out of the room.

Nao sighs and turns on his stupid video conference once again. The other doctors seem to be arguing over whether or not precision-targeted therapy seems to be a good idea, and Nao is getting antsy. He decides he’s had enough and disconnects from the call.

He walks out of his office to check up on the patients and runs into Makoto along the way.

“Nao,” Makoto starts. “How would you feel about having cats in the psychology wing? Or in the pediatric wing? I think Shigino-san’s patients will greatly benefit from seeing cats in the hospital. It would alleviate their anxieties over being at a hospital!”

Nao laughs. “While you’re making a very good pitch, some patients could go into anaphylactic shock around the cats. Then we would have a lawsuit. It wouldn’t be fun for all of us, and then the cats would have to go.”

Makoto sighs. “Well, I tried. One day I’ll figure something out.”

“I’m sure you will.” Nao looks down at Makoto’s hand. “What are you holding?”

“Oh, this?” Makoto asks, holding up what appears to be a ship made out of macaroni. “Ran and Ren made it for me! I’m gonna put it on my desk.”

Nao smiles brightly. “I think that’s beautiful.”

“They’re getting into arts and crafts and I’m so excited about it. Sure, my house is covered in glue now, but it’ll be fine,” Makoto says. “Thanks though, I’ll tell the kids you said that.”

Makoto walks away from him, and Nao continues walking all over the hospital assisting nurses and doctors.

“Oh, there you are,” Ikuya says as he approaches him. “I thought you were still in your office.”

Nao shakes his head. “Nope. Anyway, what do you need me to do this time?”

“We have two problems,” Ikuya says. “Matsuoka needs to treat a patient, except we don’t have this expensive machine to treat them because the patient needs heart surgery without anesthesia and Amakata is in your office. She doesn’t sound happy.”

Nao is about to ask which Matsuoka, but he figures out through context that Ikuya is talking about Rin.

“She’s never happy,” Nao says. “Please, can I have one day where she doesn’t throw a fit about the decisions I make around here?”

Ikuya hands him a file folder. “I’m afraid not.”

“I’ll talk to Rin later.”

Nao treads back to the office, hoping Amakata is in a good mood, although that seems like a highly unlikely possibility. He opens the door to his office and sees Amakata sitting in front of his desk.

As expected, she doesn’t look pleased in the slightest. Nao takes a seat in his normal spot.

“I thought I told you to stop wearing the scrubs?” she asks.

Nao raises an eyebrow. “Really? Don’t we have more pressing matters than my scrubs?”

Amakata ignores him and changes the subject. “Fine. I’m unhappy with the way you’ve been running the hospital.”

“Okay,” Nao says calmly. There’s a good possibility that he could be fired right now, but he knows he has to keep his composure and have a rational discussion with her.

“You got rid of the waiting room without telling me?” Amakata asks, folding her arms.

“I don’t see why I need to inform you of every decision I make,” Nao says. “You told me to improve the hospital, and that’s what I’m doing.”

Amakata huffs. “When I said ‘improve the hospital,’ I didn’t say you could remove the waiting room. I think that you’re overstepping your boundaries. Iwatobi Medical has survived with the way we did things before.”

Nao is about to say something else, but instead Amakata continues her rant.

“What’s next, are you going to offer free insurance for everyone?”

Nao grabs a pen and writes it down on a sticky note.

“I didn’t mean literally!”

“What is it, do you want me to improve the hospital or keep things the same?” Nao asks.

Amakata is pressed for an answer.

Nao continues. “You wouldn’t have hired me if you didn’t like the way I ran the clinic in Toronto.”

Nao’s clinic in Toronto was small, and it had one of the highest infection rates in all of Canada. His mission was to turn it around and help improve everyone’s lives in the town, and he did that successfully. He taught the janitorial staff how to properly sanitize and keep the hospital clean, he switched providers for their medical materials so that the items would not accidentally be exposed to bacteria. Amakata was impressed when she came to the clinic a few months ago during her trip to Canada.

She huffs. “Fine. If you can prove to me that your method of running the hospital leads to more positives, I’ll let you stay here. I’ll give you a year.”

“Make that six months,” Nao says, smirking.

Amakata frowns at him before fixing her cardigan and exiting his office.

Once he’s sure that she’s left, Nao makes a run for the Cardiology Department to check in with them on how their patient is doing.

“Rin,” he calls out. Rin turns around.

“Serizawa-san! Thank goodness, you’re here. Do you have any suggestions on how we could help our patient?” Rin asks.

Nao thinks for a moment. It hits him a few moments later on what the perfect solution is. “While Iwatobi doesn’t have the funds for this kind of machine, not unless we pull three million dollars out of thin air, there’s a hospital nearby that _does_ have one. Sofuukan. We can transfer our patient and then you could operate on the patient there.”

“Huh,” Rin says. “This… might actually work. Thank you.” Haru nods in acknowledgment, and the two run off to help their patient.

Nao helps out in the palliative care wing for a while until he gets a page from Oncology, and he heads over there to see what’s going on.

“You paged?” he asks Isuzu.

Isuzu nods. “There are two patients that are experiencing strange symptoms and our machines aren’t detecting possible diagnoses.”

Nao doesn’t have an answer off of the top of his head, and he could feel his heartbeat racing. _Think_ , Nao reminds himself. _These doctors are depending on you, come up with an answer quickly. You’re a doctor too, you have to be quick thinking._

“Nao?” Isuzu asks, snapping him out of his own thoughts. “What do you suggest?”

“Figure out where the patients have been recently and see if that has anything to do with it. I know that some places might have old strains of certain infections,” he blurts out, and he’s not even sure if what he said made any sense at all.

Isuzu nods. “Thank you.” She walks away at rapid speed.

Nao sighs in relief, thankful that he was able to help out.

He receives a phone call, and Nao picks it up when he sees that it’s from Rin. “Hello?”

“So, there’s kind of a problem here. We were able to get in, but I…”

“You…?” Nao asks, waiting for Rin to finish.

“I had to impersonate Dr. Kinjou in order to be let in.”

Well, shit. _How was I supposed to know this would happen? It was irresponsible of myself to suggest that without thinking of the consequences. Rin could get his license taken away, and this won’t reflect Iwatobi well at all._ Nao takes a deep breath. He can handle this. “As long as you can perform the procedure without getting into trouble, I’ll let this slide for now.”

“Okay, okay, thanks. Just didn’t want you to be surprised in case Sofuukan calls you asking about Kinjou. Okay, I have to go, I’ll let you know what happens next.” The phone clicks and Nao pockets his phone.

He takes a deep breath and decides to visit Natsuya in the emergency department. He sees Natsuya doing paperwork in front of the reception desk.

Natsuya is excited to see him when he arrives. He lets go of his pen and leans against the desk. “Oh hey, it’s you! How’s your day going?”

“Stressful,” Nao admits. “I don’t even know where to begin though. It’s nothing I can’t handle though. I had to deal with a bug infestation in the Toronto clinic once. It wasn’t fun, and I got several complaints because it was in the middle of flu season and everyone was sick.”

“Anti-vax moms?” Natsuya asks.

Nao laughs. “Yep.”

“Damn, that sounds like hell,” Natsuya says. “I feel like I can barely keep up with the emergency department sometimes. Oh speaking of which, I got the recall under control.”

Ah, shit, Nao had forgotten about that already. “That’s good, at least. By the way, how did you get your job here anyway?” he asks curiously.

Natsuya shrugs. “I decided I wanted stability in my life instead of being a traveling doctor. This was the only open position.”

“Traveling doctor? That sounds nice,” Nao remarks. He turns to look at Natsuya.

“It was for a while, yeah. I liked being able to see different cities,” Natsuya answers. “I’m able to speak English fluently, and I learned enough Spanish and French. But, I missed Ikuya, and I think he’s still very much upset with me because I left him alone for so long.”

“Ah. Sadly, I can’t relate. Like I said before, I’m an only child,” Nao says. “Though, I suppose I should be glad that I’m an only child. My parents weren’t the best.”

“That sucks,” Natsuya says.

Nao laughs. “I don’t know. I’m an adult now, I think I’m mostly over it.”

“Good, good. Hey, what time does your shift end today?” Natsuya asks.

Nao thinks for a moment. “Not until late, why?”

“I was gonna suggest that we could get dinner together, since I’m about to clock out, but now that I think about it - that might be a little too forward,” Natsuya says. He laughs sheepishly.

Nao waves him off. “I don’t mind. I don’t think I could make it today though, I’m waiting for Rin and his patient, and then I’m going to check on others. I appreciate the offer though.”

Natsuya snaps a finger gun. “Well, you know where to find me if you ever wanna hit me up.”

Nao laughs softly. “Yeah, okay.”

“I’m gonna clock out for the night, but see you again tomorrow,” Natsuya says. He waves before walking away from Nao.

Nao waves back, and he decides to go check up on said patients.

-

Later that night, Nao gets confirmation that Rin’s patient is successfully recovering from the surgery, and that the hospital is running smoothly. He asks Ikuya whether or not he has more paperwork to do, and surprisingly he doesn’t.

Nao takes the taxi home but stops by the grocery store so that he doesn’t forget his groceries like last week.

When he reaches his apartment, he wonders if it would be irresponsible of him if he leaves his groceries out instead of putting it away. He decides that yes, it would be irresponsible, so he puts the food in the fridge even though he can hardly think properly and his back hurts like hell.

Nao takes a shower too, hoping that it would relax him. It does at first, but after few minutes in, he starts thinking about everything that went wrong that day and how he could’ve made better decisions. He could’ve helped Natsuya out in the emergency room that morning, he could’ve given Rin better instructions instead of sending him to Sofuukan. There were a lot of decisions that he wishes he didn’t make today.

He ends up staying in the shower for almost an hour, and by that point, his hands look like raisins.

After he puts on pajamas, he collapses onto the bed, letting his mind race until he falls asleep eventually.


	4. thunder only happens when it's raining

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've been going back and forth over posting this chapter and eventually decided i should post it anyway, even though i feel like my writing style has changed. i hope the 6k makes up for the long wait!
> 
> ~~ps. forgive me for the sugamama thing in the middle~~

Natsuya and Nao have started to carpool together in the mornings. It was Natsuya’s idea, although it was entirely an attempt to flirt with Nao at first. Not every morning, but most mornings. It’s working out for them so far. They have time to get breakfast in the mornings, which is good because Nao forgets about it most of the time. Although now that he thinks about it, he forgets to eat unless he and Natsuya are eating together.

He always tries to pay Natsuya back for the meals though, but Natsuya never lets him.

“Listen, I nearly passed out from hunger while I was traveling once,” Natsuya says with his mouth full. “Which is why I try to remember to eat whenever I can.”

Natsuya’s told him tons of stories of his life as a traveling doctor, and most of the time Nao wonders how he’s still alive. “Through sheer spite,” is what Natsuya had said.

“Ah.”

Usually their car rides are…. interesting. Natsuya honks the horn at least once or twice on accident while he’s belting out tunes that Nao can’t recognize in the slightest. At least it wakes him up. Natsuya has a wide music taste, which is anywhere from heavy rock n’ roll to bubblegum pop. When Nao asked about it once, Natsuya just shrugged.

Whenever Nao thinks he understands Natsuya’s personality, Natsuya will tell him something that makes him reevaluate that thought.

Natsuya pulls into the parking lot of the hospital and parks the car. He yanks the keys out and turns to Nao, who is staring outside the window. “Are you ready to go?” he asks.

Nao nods. “Yeah.”

“What are you deep in thought about so early in the morning?” Natsuya asks. “How do you even think in the mornings?”

Nao shrugs. “I don’t know. A lot. Preparing myself for whatever the day could throw at me.”

Natsuya pats his shoulder. “You just gotta trust yourself and hope that everything will go okay. That’s what I do. And it works… most of the time.” He unlocks the car doors, and Nao clicks his seatbelt off. Natsuya opens his door for him and Nao quietly thanks him.

The two of them walk into the hospital and Natsuya groans upon seeing a news reporter in the emergency department. Ai is nervously trying to get the reporter to go away.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

Natsuya pinches the bridge of his nose. “No idea. Whenever someone is doing a news piece on us, it’s never a good thing. Last time the news was here, our old medical director had gotten caught for money laundering.”

Nao remembers reading about that when researching the hospital for this position. He sighs and displays his ID to the reporter, telling him to leave. The reporter curses at him on the way out.

Someone taps on Nao’s shoulder, and Nao turns around to see Ikuya.

“Ikuya, what’s going on?” Natsuya asks.

“You’re being sued,” Ikuya says bluntly.

Nao looks at him curiously. “What the hell did you do?”

“That’s what I’d like to know.” Ikuya shakes his head. “Anyway, there’s someone here whose wife died while she was under our care. Natsuya, you were the doctor that admitted her in. A few Cardiology surgeons are under fire too.”

Nao stops Ikuya for a minute. “I’m sorry, when did this, the surgery, happen?”

“Sometime before you took over the hospital.” Ikuya shrugs.

Nao wants to ask why no one had bothered mentioning it to him before, or why he himself didn’t ask about any recent deaths in the hospital, but he decides that it’s the least of his worries right now. “Fine, then. What can I do to help?”

“Take over the ED, pretty please?” Natsuya asks, pleading. He bats his eyes in the most obnoxious way possible, and Nao gives in. He would’ve given in anyway, since helping out patients is one of his favorite aspects of being a doctor, but still.

Nao sighs. “Yeah, sure.”

Nao watches as Natsuya gets whisked away elsewhere. He decides to make himself busy by talking to patients and making sure that the ED is running smoothly. There are a few patients that get rushed in under critical condition, but Nao manages to stabilize them for the meantime. 

He’s getting increasingly worried about Natsuya and how the case is going throughout the day. Court cases are stressful. He remembers sitting through jury duty last year. It wasn’t fun, he was anxious the entire time, thinking that he’d done something wrong even though he hadn’t.

“Nao,” someone calls out, and Nao turns around to see Ai behind him.

“Yeah?”

Ai points to one of the patients in the far corner. “Patient has been pressing their button for a while now.” Nao nods and heads over there.

Nao gives a friendly smile to the patient. “What seems to be the problem today?”

“Oh, I just need my bandages changed. One of the nurses told me to change it every few hours or so,” the patient says sheepishly.

Nao nods. “Yeah, okay, I can do that.” 

It reminds him of his intern days at Iwatobi when he would do his rounds in the emergency department. He always felt useful during each shift, excited and eager to become a doctor.

Nao takes a look at the cabinet next to the hospital bed to see if there’s ointment and gauze. There’s elastic wrap that's meant to go over gauze and bandages, but none of the actual bandages.

“I’ll be right back,” Nao says.

He heads over to the supply closet to get the materials he needs before changing the bandages. “Lift up your gown a little bit,” he instructs, and the patient follows. Nao slips on a pair of gloves before taking the bandages off slowly and delicately. He tosses the old dressings into the biohazard waste container before opening a swab to apply the ointment on the patient’s leg. He opens the bandage and presses it onto the wound before wrapping it in medical tape.

“What happened to your leg?” Nao asks.

The patient shrugs. “Not entirely sure. Oncology is going to get a biopsy on it at some point today.”

“Huh, okay,” Nao says. “Make sure you take it easy. Wouldn’t want it to get infected now, would we?”

They shake their head. “No. Thank you for changing my bandage, Dr. Serizawa.”

“No problem.” Nao smiles brightly before walking back to reception.

“Any word yet from Ikuya or anyone else?” Nao asks.

Ai shakes his head. “Sorry. I wish I could help you.”

“You’re already helping by filling out the paperwork and checking patients in,” Nao reassures him.

Nao thinks for a split second that he should barge in and ask for answers, but he reminds himself that there’s a formal court procedure and that he shouldn’t disrupt it.

“Why don’t you check up on Matsuoka?” Ai suggests while watching Nao pace back and forth.

Nao looks at him, confused. “Which one?”

“Gou,” he says. “Rin is in the courtroom too.”

Ah, Nao remembers that Ikuya said something about cardiology being involved in the case as well. He presses the ‘up’ button on the elevator to head up to Oncology and knocks on Gou’s office door.

Gou opens the door a moment later, and her face is red and puffy.

“Are you alright?” Nao asks.

Gou shakes her head. “I get worried about my brother a lot. I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

“I know Rin,” Nao says. “I know he wouldn’t intentionally hurt others.”

Nao has observed how Rin, and many of the other doctors at Iwatobi, care for patients. Iwatobi has luckily managed to avoid patient deaths ever since Nao became the medical director.

He hands Gou a tissue, and she wipes her face. Nao offers her a hug, and she nods, wrapping her arms around him.

“I’m fine, I’m just scared,” Gou admits when she pulls away from him. “It’s been just us for a while now, and I’d hate for him to get into trouble.”

“I’ll make sure he doesn’t,” Nao says.

Gou looks up at him. “Thanks.”

“How did the two of you both get into medicine?” Nao asks.

Gou thinks for a moment. “Well, Rin wanted to be a doctor first to honor our dad, and then I followed in his footsteps because I liked my human biology courses in university.”

Nao thinks back to the time he first wanted to become a doctor. At first, it was out of spite, but he put forth so much effort and realized that he  _ does  _ like learning about medicine.

“Why Oncology then?” Nao asks. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

Gou shrugs. “I had a childish dream that I could cure cancer one day.”

“I don’t think it’s childish.”

There’s a buzzing sound on his pager, and Nao’s heart races upon seeing the name on it… until he looks in closer and sees that it’s from  _ Natsuo _ , one of the physicians, instead. Apparently the emergency department needs more supplies. Nao sighs and puts the pager back in his pocket. “Take care,” he says before walking away from her.

As Nao is walking toward the emergency department, he runs into Amakata once again.

“Good afternoon, Miho,” Nao says. “What brings you here today?”

“You know why I’m here,” she retorts. She turns to follow him. “Did you know anything about this? How come I didn’t know anything?”

“No. The patient's death happened before I was put in charge,” Nao says calmly. “I thought you trusted me to run this hospital, and I can’t do that if you’re going to be hovering over me every week.”

“But - ”

Nao stops and turns to look at her. “I don’t want to fight with you, I really don’t. All I’m saying is that Tono will tell me how the case went after he’s finished the round of interrogations.”

Amakata doesn’t say anything else to him.

Nao excuses himself and continues walking to the emergency department. He grabs a stock of supplies along the way and double-checks all of the cabinets to make sure they’re filled. Nao takes a quick break to eat something, only because he could hear his stomach rumbling and he hadn’t eaten in a long time.

He forces himself to do the tedious paperwork that has been sitting on his desk too, in order to keep himself busy. Although, he heads back out to the emergency department as well as checking up on the rest of the hospital once he gets antsy.

Hiyori and the rest of the group get out a while later, and Nao asks what happened.

“Patient’s wife agreed to a settlement,” Hiyori says. “Although their intentions were clear, some of the decisions they made wouldn’t exactly look good in front of a jury.”

Nao exhales in relief. He doesn’t ask for more information, he knows that he could read the paperwork later. “Thank you,” he tells Hiyori. Hiyori nods in acknowledgment before following Ikuya out of the emergency room.

“You were worried about me, weren’t you?” Natsuya says, and Nao turns around to face him.

Nao folds his arms. “No, I wasn’t worried in the slightest,” he says lightly, laughing a little bit.

Natsuya punches him in the arm. “Oh well. Man, I’m so glad I’m out of there. It was so stuffy and warm, and then Tono kept asking me so many questions that I could barely understand. He’s scary in lawyer mode.”

“I’m glad you’re not in trouble though,” Nao says. “You’re a good doctor, I wouldn’t want your reputation to be stained because of this.”

Natsuya smiles softly. “Thanks. You always know what to say.”

Nao doesn’t say anything else on the subject. He grabs a hairpin from his pocket and clips his bangs out of his face.

“Hey, do you want to hang out with me and Isuzu and Asahi? We used to go drinking together all the time, and now that all three of us are working in the same place and same time, we decided to start up the tradition again.” Natsuya laughs. “Isuzu could hold her liquor well.”

Nao shakes his head. “I appreciate the offer, but I don’t think I could join you guys.”

“Do you not drink?” Natsuya asks curiously. “Because if so, then like, I totally get it - “

Nao cuts him off. “It’s not that, I’m just… I wouldn’t be able to get home and I just have too much to do at home tonight,” he says. It’s more of an excuse though. In all honesty, he’s not sure if Asahi or Isuzu would appreciate him invading their time together.

He also has a reputation to uphold, and he knows very well that the image he’s worked hard to maintain will go down the drain.

“Maybe next time,” Nao offers.

Natsuya smiles slightly. “Yeah, next time. See you tomorrow.”

“See you,” Nao says. He hopes he didn’t offend Natsuya too much.

Natsuya walks away, and Nao heads in the opposite direction to pack up for the night.

On his taxi ride home, he gets a text on his phone. Nao half expects it to be from Natsuya and is pleasantly surprised when it’s from Suga.

_ NAO hi how’s japan it’s been a hot minute daichi and i miss u _

Another text comes in, and this time it’s a cat gif. Nao laughs and texts Suga back.

_ Thank you for that, I needed it today. _

He watches the ‘Suga is typing…’ tagline disappear and reappear every few seconds or so until he finally sees a message pop up on his screen. 

_ do you want to talk about it? we could call each other? daichi is awake and i don’t go into work for a few more hours, don’t worry about the timezone _

Nao thinks about it for a moment. Although Suga is one of his friends, he doesn’t know if he should be spilling his troubles away even though they haven’t talked since before he moved. But, he decides that they probably  _ should  _ call at some point, so why not now?

He texts Suga back telling him that he’ll be home soon.

Nao makes his way up to his apartment and texts Suga once again that he’s ready to call. Suga calls him, and he taps the ‘accept’ button. He can see Suga’s wide grin on his small screen.

“Nao!” Suga says excitedly. “How are you doing? I miss you.”

Nao laughs. “You miss my laundry washing techniques.”

Suga sticks his tongue out. “Maybe. Anyway, what time is it there? I hope it’s not too late.”

Nao checks the clock on the wall. “It’s nine, so not too late.”

“Have you eaten dinner yet?” Suga asks.

Nao scratches the back of his neck and stammers. “No.”

“Go make some food right now,” Suga orders. “Then you can talk to Sugamama about your problems.”

Nao laughs. He’s missed Suga and his mother-hen antics. He looks in the fridge and decides to make ramen.

He waves the packet in front of Suga. “Are you happy?”

Suga beams. “Yeah, I am.  _ Anyway _ , what’s up with you? How’s your new job? Have you met anyone?” He winks.

Nao shrugs. “It’s a good job. Pays better than the job at the clinic, to be honest. I’ve met most of the staff, and I really like getting to know them. Oh, and cute kids are always in the pediatric wing, I think you would like it there.” He turns on the stove to let the water boil before adding the noodles in.

“I like  _ teaching  _ kids, not being their doctor,” Suga says. “No, I meant, have you  _ met _ someone?” He puts air quotes around met.

Nao rolls his eyes. Suga means well, but Nao doesn’t have  _ time  _ for dating or anything like that. He hasn’t spent time with any of his coworkers outside of work other than Natsuya, and even then - that’s limited.

“No. I haven’t ‘met’ anyone,” Nao says. He cracks an egg on top of the ramen. “I work as a  _ medical director _ , how would I find the time to meet anyone?”

Suga pouts. “I don’t want you to be lonely, y’know? In the six years that we were roommates, you didn’t date anyone because you devoted yourself to your work. While I think that’s admirable, it’s also sad that you don’t really have a life.”

Nao knows that he hasn’t had a partner since, well, ever, but his career means a lot to him.

Nao doesn’t know if he should be offended or not. He lets the ramen cook for a few minutes before taking it off of the heat.

“Seriously, though - are you good? Because you know you’re always welcome back here if you aren’t,” Suga says.

Nao grabs his chopsticks from one of the kitchen drawers and sticks them into the noodles to eat them. “Suga, I know you’re being nice but I’m not third-wheeling you and Daichi anymore.”

Suga huffs. “That didn’t mean you had to move to Japan.”

“I promise everything’s fine,” Nao reassures him. He omits the fact that he constantly second-guesses every decision and almost forgot to buy groceries for two weeks in a row, but other than that, he thinks he’s doing fine. “I’d let you know if they weren’t.”

“Okay. I trust you.” Suga smiles at him as Nao continues eating his ramen.

They talk for a while longer, although it’s mainly Suga talking about things that have happened at the preschool he works at and all. Nao’s glad to hear from him at least. Suga hangs up when he realizes he has to get ready for work and that’s when Nao realizes he has to get ready for bed.

Nao briefly entertains the idea that he could possibly date someone while he’s the medical director, but shoots it down quickly. Even if he magically had the time for a date, it would have to be kept completely secret.

He shakes his head, deciding that it’s too much of a risk. Nao pulls his hair out of his braid and fixes it again before going to bed that night.

-

Today has already gotten off to a bad start. Nao wakes up with a migraine and pain in his back. It was his fault for passing out on the couch instead of sleeping in his bedroom, but whatever. He makes sure to take an Advil before he leaves for work that morning.

The taxi ride to work is also incredibly unpleasant. The car smells like rotten eggs, making him nauseous, and the driver is ridiculously loud. Nao wonders how people could be this chipper at seven in the morning.

Nao steps into work and groans when he sees Natsuya and Ikuya arguing in front of reception. Ai is visibly panicking over trying to stop them. Nao feels awful that Ai had to deal with this on his own.

Nao sighs and approaches them, breaking up the fight. “Natsuya, Ikuya, what now?”

“He messed up his paperwork,” Ikuya says, pointing toward Natsuya.

Natsuya holds his hands up in defense. “No, I didn’t! You’re the one who messed it up!”

They start fighting with each other once again, and Nao sighs. How do people have the energy to argue this early in the day? It’s making his head hurt even more. Nao contemplates taking another Advil but decides against it, knowing he’ll be fine in a few hours.

“Natsuya, just fix the paperwork, please,” Nao scolds. It’s like he’s dealing with a bunch of children. He wonders why the two of them can’t get along peacefully for even a split second. “If you’ll excuse me.”

Nao walks away from the emergency department to head to his office, and along the way, Isuzu approaches him.

“Dr. Mikoshiba,” Nao says. He doesn’t stop walking. “What can I do for you today?”

Isuzu cuts right to the chase. She hands him a clipboard, and Nao takes it from her.  _ Stem-cell therapies _ . “I have plans to start a clinical trial with eligible patients. If you look through the papers here, I have a detailed plan on how to run this trial.”

Nao stops in a corner of the hallway and puts his glasses on to read said papers. Isuzu clearly has great potential with this plan, and it would benefit the patients provided that it goes well. She has a source for funding too, which is important. “I don’t see why you can’t perform the trial,” he says. “I can sign off on it right now, just make sure that you make a copy and forward it to Ikuya so that it’s in our records.”

Isuzu hands him a pen, and Nao clicks it before signing his signature.

He heads into his office to get started on some of his work before he does rounds in the hospital. As he gets through some of it, Ikuya stops by to add another set of paperwork to the huge pile.

“Do I really need to fill all of this out?” Nao asks. Again, he would much rather interact with the patients instead of sitting in his stuffy office filling out paperwork and making phone calls to medical supply businesses.

“You’re the medical director,” Ikuya reminds him. “You oversee  _ everything _ .” He shuts the door behind him.

Everything.

The word echoes through Nao’s mind while he’s working, making him lose focus every now and then. It’s not as if he didn’t know that, he made sure to read the fine print before accepting this position - but it suddenly hits him that he’s literally overseeing  _ everything  _ that happens in the hospital. Now he knows why most people quit this position.

But he reminds himself that the position keeps him in good standing and that he doesn’t have to worry about being in debt or losing money if he were to stay here. Plus, it’s livelier than his old Toronto clinic, that’s for sure. He just needs to make sure he can prove that he can handle this position.

The patients need him and the doctors need him. This is no time for him to start panicking over whether or not he can handle this position. He can’t stop now, not after he’s fought so hard to stay. 

Nao takes a deep breath and tells himself to push through.

There’s a knock on his office door, and Nao stops what he’s doing. “Come in.”

The door opens, revealing Gou - and she doesn’t look all that pleased.

“How can I help you?” Nao asks.

She takes a deep breath and takes the seat in front of him. “You remember the plan that Mikoshiba-san told you about earlier today, hm?”

“Yes?” Nao says, confused. He has a gut feeling that this isn’t going to go well.

Gou folds her arms. “She stole the plan from me.”

Nao pinches the bridge of his nose. Just  _ once  _ he would like a day where he doesn’t need to fix everyone’s interpersonal issues with each other. Now he’s starting to regret declining Makoto’s suggestion for cats in the pediatric ward. Cats are quiet, they’re great listeners, and they definitely relieve stress.

Oh, how Nao wishes he had a cat. He reminds himself that it’s not possible for him to take care of one with his packed work schedule. Suga and Daichi used to have a cat

“Do you have substantial evidence?” Nao asks.

She shakes her head. “We created the plan together years ago,” she explains. “Isuzu changed the details so that it wouldn’t appear that way. But I remember those plans and the details on them.”

“I don’t know if I could do anything about that,” Nao says. “Since you created the plan together, it’s also  _ her  _ intellectual property.”

He’s never had to deal with something like this before. Nao hopes that a lawsuit won’t break out. That’s the last thing that Iwatobi needs right now, and if word got out that Gou sued her fellow employee, it would make the hospital look bad.

Gou frowns. “Yeah. I get it.”

“I believe you though, and I wish there was something I could do to help you. You should definitely talk to her if you’re this distressed about it,” Nao suggests.

Gou scoffs. “I doubt she would listen to me.”

That’s the same thing Isuzu said to Nao a while ago. “You never know.” He leans in forward. “I had a coworker at my old clinic who didn’t like me in the slightest, and after I talked to them everything was fine.”

Although now that he thinks about it, that happens between him and almost everyone he meets. He doesn’t know how it happens, but it does. Someone told him once that he has a god-like presence, and Nao hasn’t stopped thinking about that.

“Listen,” Nao continues. “I don’t think she hates you. I don’t think you hate her either. You guys worked together years ago to create that plan, I’m sure that you could be friends again. Or, if not friends - at least on amicable terms. Life is short, it’s not wise to hate the people around you… although some people deserve it. You just have to use your best judgment.

Gou laughs slightly. “Thank you. I’ll see you around.” She holds her hand out and Nao shakes it. She stands up and walks out of the room, shutting the door behind her.

Nao debates whether or not he should continue doing his disgusting pile of paperwork. He decides not to because he remembers that he still needs to do rounds.

-

Nao catches up with Natsuya during lunch in the break room that afternoon.

“How do you stomach drinking hospital coffee?” Natsuya asks while Nao is pouring coffee into his mug.

Nao shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“My rule of thumb is to never drink hospital coffee,” Natsuya says. “Other than that, most coffee is fine. Oh, by the way, how’s your day going?”

“It’s… fine. It’s been hectic, but that’s what always happens around here,” Nao says. “I would just like one day where I’m not trying to fix everyone’s problems.” He opens the fridge and grabs both his mug and tupperware before sitting next to Natsuya.

Natsuya looks up at him. “What happened?”

“Matsuoka thought that Mikoshiba stole her clinical trial plans,” Nao explains. He opens his tupperware and sticks his chopsticks into the rice and curry.

“Which one?” Natsuya asks, sticking his fork into his pasta and taking a bite.

Nao gives him a look. “Gou.”

“No, I picked that up. I meant which Mikoshiba,” Natsuya clarifies.

“There’s more than one Mikoshiba?” Nao asks curiously. He wonders just exactly how many family relatives there are around here.

Natsuya nods. “Yeah. Isuzu, obviously, and then her two brothers - Sei and Momo.”

Nao remembers meeting both Sei and Momo before, although they aren’t doctors. He wonders if Natsuya knows that, but doesn’t say anything about it.

“It was Isuzu,” Nao says.

“ _ Oh _ .” Natsuya laughs. “Gou and Isuzu are always fighting.”

“So are you and your brother,” Nao points out. “What happened this morning?”

Natsuya shrugs. “I mean… this always happens. He hounds me for messing up paperwork or whenever something goes wrong in the ED.”

There’s an awkward silence between them, and Nao desperately wishes he knew what to say or that he could take back what he said. He crossed a line when he brought that up, he should be more careful next time. He knows he should stop trying to fix everything.

“Anyway,” Natsuya says. “New topic, I heard that Amakata has been super pissed at you recently. Which, I find stupid, because you’ve been doing such a great job here.”

Nao waves him off. “Don’t worry about it, I talked it out with her. Of course, she’s still upset, but she agreed to let me stay.”

“Whoa, really?” Natsuya asks incredulously. “Whenever Amakata’s pissed, she fires people on the spot. She fired me once, but I… may or may not have gone over her head to get my position reinstated.”

That doesn’t surprise Nao at all. He wonders if he should ask about it, because it seems interesting, but he decides that’s not important right now.

“Huh,” Nao says. He’s not sure what to think about Amakata. He knows that she’s tough and strict, but he didn’t know that she has a history of firing people on the spot. He takes another bite of his food and makes sure that his mouth isn’t full before he starts talking again. “I just need to prove to her that I know what I’m doing and that these changes will benefit the hospital in the long run.”

Natsuya laughs and waves his fork around. “Well, sure, but she  _ didn’t fire you _ . That should be enough proof that you’re doing your job properly. Still, you do so much for all of us. We’re grateful to have you here. Your changes have already improved the hospital greatly.”

Nao shrugs but doesn’t say anything else about it. He thinks about how he’s definitely screwed things up while working here at Iwatobi, and that there are definitely decisions he’s made that Amakata would not be pleased with if she ever found out. He hopes that he didn’t just jinx it.

“You look like you’re thinking about everything in the universe,” Natsuya says. “You should like… stop thinking for a minute and rest.”

“I’m the medical director, I can’t just stop whatever I’m doing and rest,” Nao reasons. It would make him look lazy and unmotivated if he did.

Natsuya laughs. “Sure you can. I know a doctor who would just take naps at random so that he could be at his top game whenever he had to operate on people. I did it sometimes before working the graveyard shifts.”

“Unfortunately, not everyone can afford to be like both of you.”

“But you’re going to burn yourself out if you don’t rest at some point,” Natsuya reminds him.

“I know how to take care of myself,” Nao says bluntly. He stands up and stretches. He closes the lid on his tupperware and sticks it back into the fridge for later. He downs the coffee in his mug before dropping it into the sink. “I’ll see you later, Natsuya.”

Natsuya waves weakly and watches as Nao heads out of the breakroom.

-

Nao decides to check up on Gou and Isuzu once again. He sees that Isuzu’s office door is open, but she’s not in there.

He checks Gou’s office as well, and he knocks on the door.

Gou opens it. Her eyes are puffy and red, and she looks like she’s been crying. “Oh, hey, did you need anything?”

Nao shakes his head, deciding that now wouldn’t be a good time to ask her about the trial. “I’m good. Hey, are you okay?”

Gou shakes her head. “Ah. Not really. Isuzu and I got into a screaming match about the trial.”

Nao tries to speak, but Gou continues.

“She doesn’t seem to realize that she stole some of my ideas, and I’m really upset. I’d involve my brother into this, but I need to do it on my own and I just… I’m stressed. One of my patients isn’t responding to treatment very well, and I get extremely anxious whenever that happens.”

Nao offers to give her a hug, and she nods. He wraps his arms around her. “Hey, you’ll be okay. You’re strong and intelligent. If you need help telling your patients, I will be more than happy to assist.”

Gou pulls away, and she grabs a tissue from the tissue box on her desk. “I think I’ll be fine. I just needed to cry for a bit. Thank you though, I’m sorry if I crossed any lines.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Nao says, and waves her off.

There’s a knock on the door, and Nao steps aside so that Gou could let them in.

“Nurse Chigusa,” Gou says. “What can I do for you?”

“The patient’s caregivers are here,” Chigusa says.

Gou nods and Chigusa leaves the room. “Well, I have to go now, but thanks again.”

“Of course,” Nao says. He follows Gou out of her office, but heads off in the opposite direction to tend to other matters.

-

“Hey, Nao!”

Nao turns to see Makoto waving at him.

“So, I know you said that cats aren’t something we could have in the hospital,  _ but  _ I did come up with something that will help out a bit,” Makoto says.

“What is it?”

Makoto imitates a drum roll. “A community garden!”

Nao looks at him curiously. “Tell me more.”

“It makes the hospital look pretty, and it boosts morale,” Makoto stammers a little bit. “It’s great for all ages and gives us healthy food.”

Nao hums in agreement. “Those are some great qualities, but we’d need both the space and the budget for that. We’d also need to make sure that people can maintain it.” Makoto frowns and Nao pats his back. He feels horrible that he couldn’t say yes to Makoto’s idea since he seems so proud of it.“Don’t be discouraged. I promise we’ll find something.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know.” Makoto sighs.

“It really is a good idea, but we definitely won’t be able to add it to the budget plan,” Nao reassures him. “If you can find a sponsor for it, we can consider it.”

Makoto beams. “Ah, okay. Thank you though!”

“You’re welcome,” Nao says. Makoto walks away from him, and Nao continues walking down the hallway.

He stops at the pediatric wing, where someone is reading a storybook to a group of children. Nao stands in the back, next to Dr. Shigino. He doesn’t recognize the story.

“Oh! Serizawa-san, you’re here,” Shigino whispers. “Did you need something from me?”

Nao shakes his head. “Just thought I’d observe. Thank you though, Shigino-san.”

“Kisumi is fine,” he says. “Isn’t this great? It’s always fun to watch Asahi tell stories.”

Nao nods, and he turns to watch Asahi read the story and interact with the kids. This must be the same Asahi that Natsuya had mentioned before. He recognizes him as one of the EMTs. He could see why they’d make good friends. The story ends a little while later and Asahi heads over to where Kisumi and Nao are standing.

“These kids are adorable,” Asahi says. “I love reading to them.” He turns to look at Nao. “Oh! Serizawa-san! You’re here! How are you doing? Shiina Asahi, one of the EMTs here.”

“I’m good, thanks for asking. It’s really cool that you read for the kids.”

Asahi waves him off. “Ah, I do it whenever I can. It brings a little bit of joy here, and I like hanging out with them.”

“Asahi is great with them,” Kisumi says, laughing. Asahi kisses Kisumi on the cheek. “He’s my fiance, by the way.”

“How did you guys meet?” Nao asks, although he wonders if that’s a bit too personal to ask.

“Childhood friends,” Asahi explains. “We met in middle school. We knew Haruka and Makoto back then too.”

It’s cute, Nao thinks. He may or may not be mildly jealous, but for the most part he’s happy that they managed to find each other. 

Nao receives a page and he sees that it’s from Natsuya - there’s been a massive car crash on the highway. Ambulances are flooding in, several patients are in critical condition, and he needs all hands on deck.

Well,  _ shit _ .

“I’ve gotta go,” Nao says. Asahi says it at the same time, and the two of them run out of the pediatric wing, not waiting for Kisumi to say anything. They don't stop running until he gets to the emergency department.

He directs the other EMTs and Paramedics to certain bay areas and judges which patients need the operating rooms more. Nao’s getting stressed, but he tells himself that he can do this, he just has to think.

A nurse asks him what kind of medicine to administer to a patient who is allergic to penicillin, and Nao blurts something out. He can’t remember if that’s the right one or not, and it stresses him out even further. 

_ You’re fine _ , he tells himself.  _ You’re fine. _


	5. 'cause even the stars, they burn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hhhhhh this isn't the best but i figured i would get it out anyway. i'm struggling with motivation to write the last chapter but it'll happen.... hopefully before the end of the year 
> 
> thank you for all of your support on this fic though, it means a lot that people enjoy reading my first chaptered fic and currently the longest thing i've written

Hours later, and the emergency room is still a mess. Nao and the rest of the staff do their best to keep everything under control though. His headache is getting worse again, but he doesn’t stop to take Advil - it would slow him down.

Some police officers show up in the middle of all of it, and Nao had to tell them to leave so that he and the other doctors could do their jobs properly.

The highway was full of traffic when the crash happened. People were trying to cut each other off and some were speeding. Luckily, most people made it out with barely any scrapes and injuries, but some people aren’t so lucky.

At least no one is dead on arrival.

He hopes he didn’t just jinx that. 

“Serizawa!” a nurse calls out.

“What is it?” he asks, without looking up from the patient he’s treating. He wraps a bandage over their hand after taking the piece of glass out.

“Where does this patient go? They’re awaiting surgery.”

Nao wipes sweat off of his forehead with his sleeve. “If they’re stable, transfer them to one of the rooms. If not, keep them here. 

“Got it,” the nurse says, and she wheels the patient away.

Isuzu shows up too and asks Nao how she could help out. Nao tells her to check for any infections and to treat them as best as she can.

The news reporters show up too, and Nao panics when they ask him questions repeatedly. It’s overwhelming, and it makes Nao feel as if he can’t control anything that’s happening in this hospital.

Natsuya cuts in though, and orders everyone to leave and give them space.

“Thanks,” Nao says.

“Don’t sweat it,” Natsuya says before they get back to their work.

Nao’s exhausted, but he continues helping patients out anyway. The emergency department does calm down eventually though, and Natsuya goes to him when it does.

“Man, I’m glad that we were able to help everyone out,” Natsuya says.

Nao sighs in relief. “Couldn’t have done it without you.”

“I could say the same thing about you,” Natsuya says, winking. He yawns and stretches. “Anyway, the surgeries are going fine so far. At least, that’s what I was told.”

Nao thinks for a moment. Whenever people tell him about surgeries, he always gets anxious that they’re not going to turn out well. He almost became a surgeon, but he knew his hands were too shaky to perform well. He also knew that he wouldn’t forgive himself if a patient died on his table. He turns to look at Natsuya. “Rin is a good surgeon, right?”

“Yes?” Natsuya says, confused. “You wouldn’t have made him the Head of Cardiology if he wasn’t.”

_ Right _ . He knew that. Why would he think otherwise?

Nao laughs nervously. “Yeah… of course. I’m just worried.”

“I know, but again, you have to trust that everything will be fine. And if it isn’t, we always bounce back.” Natsuya puts his hands on Nao’s arms, right below the shoulders. “Okay, what did you do whenever things went wrong at your clinic?”

Nao thinks about that for a moment. He’d go home and feel awful about it for the rest of the night before he forced himself to try and fix it. “I try to fix it.”

Natsuya laughs. “Of course you’d try to fix it. But sometimes there’s nothing you can do to fix it.”

It sounds oddly profound coming from Natsuya, but Nao appreciates it.

“Thanks,” Nao says. He smiles softly, and Natsuya pats Nao’s back.

“Well, I’m gonna take a break and eat something. You can join me if you want,” Natsuya says.

Nao nods. “Yeah, I’ll join you in a bit.”

Natsuya flashes him a smile, and he walks away from him. Nao cleans things up around the emergency department, and he notices a young boy crying in the corner. There are bandages on his face and arms.

He approaches him. “Are you alright?”

The boy shakes his head. “I miss my dad.”

Nao’s face falls. “Where is he?”

“Surgery,” he stammers. “I’m scared.”

“Is there anyone else with you?” Nao asks, and the boy shakes his head. He starts crying again, and Nao tries to comfort him.

He decides to take the boy to see Makoto, since he’s better at comforting people than Nao is. “Come with me,” he says, and the boy follows him.

Nao runs into Haru in the hallway leading to the psychology wing. He’s holding a paper bag.

“Haruka! Where’s Makoto?” Nao asks him. “And what are you holding?”

Haru turns around and opens the bag to take out the bento inside it. “Mackerel. He fell down the stairs trying to rush here this morning, so now he’s in one of the hospital rooms. Why?”

Well, shit. He should’ve checked beforehand that Makoto wasn’t working today.  _ Plan B, take the kid to the pediatric wing _ , Nao thinks. “I’m looking for him, and you’re almost always seen together,” he explains. “Wait a minute, why are you giving him mackerel?”

“Hospital food is awful,” Haru says bluntly. “And why not?”

Nao shrugs. “It caught me off guard. Anyway, thank you for telling me.”

Haruka nods and continues walking, while Nao turns around.

“Where are we going?” the boy asks him.

“The pediatric wing. You can stay there until your dad gets out of surgery, and there are other kids you could play with,” Nao says, and they continue walking.

“Oh, okay.”

The conversation ends there, and Nao leads him to the pediatric wing where Kisumi gladly tries to cheer him up and distract him.

He checks the time on his watch and decides to join Natsuya for food. 

Natsuya is still sitting in the break room, scrolling through his phone while he’s eating. 

“Hey!” Natsuya says, looking up when Nao enters the room. “Thought you wouldn’t show up at all.”

Nao laughs. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Yeah, I suppose,” Natsuya says.

Natsuya continues eating, and Nao gets his own food out. They eat in a comfortable silence, and Nao is grateful that Natsuya is there with him.

A while later, Nao observes Rin from above the operating room. Rin is doing his best, and it seems as if they’re making progress. It eases Nao’s worries a little bit, although he can’t help but feel anxious still.

Rin notices him, and he excuses himself from the surgery to head up to where Nao is.

“Nao,” Rin says. “Did you need anything?”

Nao shakes his head. “Just wanted to check if everything’s going well.”

Rin nods. “So far yes. This surgery is going to take a while though.”

“I’ll let you get back to it then,” Nao says, and he leaves.

He passes the time by pacing back and forth around the hospital. He can’t keep his thoughts in order, and he wishes that he wasn’t so worked up over this surgery.

Surgeries happen all the time here in the hospital, and yet - he’s worried about this one in particular. He’s not sure  _ why _ , either.

Nao is currently in Makoto’s office, and he keeps tapping his foot.

“Nao, I think you should calm down,” Makoto says. “Rin has done the surgery several times. Most patients turn out just fine.”

“I have a bad feeling about this one though,” Nao answers. His head is starting to hurt again.

Makoto takes a seat in front of him. “Okay, well, is there any reason why you have a gut feeling that this one is going to turn out awfully?”

Nao doesn’t answer him. He doesn’t know how to voice his thoughts, especially when they’re scattered like this. He thinks about the young boy that he saw in the hallway earlier, that there’s a possibility this kid won’t have a father anymore in case the surgery doesn’t go well.

Of course, there’s a chance that it might not be the same patient but Nao could never be too careful.

“What’s different about this one then, compared to all of the other surgeries that have happened here?” Makoto asks.

Maybe it’s because he’s aware of the surgery, but he’s not sure. Nao sighs. “Car crash,” he says. He’s not sure what else to think.

“Okay, okay. We’re getting somewhere.” Makoto takes a notepad and pen out. “So what about the car crash?”

Nao thinks for a moment. “I don’t know. The emergency room was a mess.” He doesn’t continue after that.

Makoto sighs but doesn’t say anything else about it. “We can talk about this later then.”

There’s a knock on the door, and Makoto opens it. It’s Rin, and the look on his face shows that things aren’t going well.

“What happened?” Nao asks.

Rin sighs. “The patient didn’t make it.”

His gut feeling was right, the surgery didn’t go well at all. Nao could feel his hands starting to shake. How could this have happened? Rin was careful, he was doing his job properly. If Nao had made the call to let him wait for surgery instead of sending him in immediately, this wouldn’t have happened. 

The hardest part of being a doctor is that he can’t save everyone, and it  _ hurts _ .

“I’m sorry,” Rin says. “I did the best I could.”

Nao sighs. “I know you did.” He wishes he could’ve done something, and instead he’s sitting here and panicking. “It’s fine, it’s not your fault. I’ll prepare everything,”

He leaves Makoto’s office and pages Ikuya to look for him. Nao finds Ikuya in one of the hallways and approaches him.

“Ikuya,” Nao says. “We need to call the bereavement staff, and call the patient’s family to let them know that they’ve passed, and then…” His mind is blanking. He knows what he needs to do when a patient passes, he covered that in his training. Why is he blanking?

“Nao, go home,” Ikuya orders, interrupting his thoughts. “I can handle talking to the bereavement staff. You’re stressed, you won’t be any help if you stay here. It’s late anyway.”

“But - ”

Ikuya doesn’t let him continue. “Please.”

Nao tries to say something else, but Natsuya shows up and taps him on the shoulder and gets him to move away.

They head down to the lockers, where Nao puts up his lab coat and exchanges it for an old hoodie of his. It’s starting to get colder in Iwatobi now.

“Are you okay?” Natsuya asks.

Nao shrugs. “It’s my fault, I’m the one that allowed for the surgery to take place.”

“And he needed it,” Natsuya says as he’s putting his own jacket on. “Don’t beat yourself up over this.”

Nao doesn’t say anything else, and he follows Natsuya out of the building. They get into Natsuya’s car, and Natsuya starts driving to get to Nao’s apartment. Despite the fact that Natsuya has been there dozens of times, he makes three wrong turns, but eventually, he gets there.

It’s quiet the whole ride there. Natsuya doesn’t even turn on background music. They don’t say anything to each other, and it feels tense and awkward the whole time. Nao tries to say something, but every time he does, he doesn’t really know what to say.

“I’m gonna stay with you tonight,” Natsuya blurts out of nowhere as he’s approaching the complex.

Nao frowns. “You don’t need to check up on me, I’m fine,” he says. “My apartment is still unkempt, I would feel like a bad host if you came over.”

Natsuya ignores him. “I don't care, we’ve both had a rough day. I've stayed in worse places while I was a traveling physician.”

“Natsuya, I already - ”

“Just let me do this for you, dammit,” Natsuya says. “You had a panic attack earlier, and you haven’t stopped working your ass off to keep this hospital afloat, so let me repay you. I’m not leaving you alone.”

“You wouldn’t have anywhere to sleep though,” Nao points out. “I don’t have a guest bedroom.”

“I can sleep on the couch. Hell, I could sleep on the floor,” Natsuya says. “I told you I’m not leaving you alone tonight.”

“Thank you,” Nao says weakly. It’s clear that Natsuya is stubborn and will not rest until he gets his way.

“Of course.” Natsuya parks the car, and the two of them head upstairs together. Nao unlocks the door for him, and Natsuya sits on the couch.

“Do you want to eat anything?” Nao asks. 

Natsuya shakes his head. “I think I’m good. Thanks though. You should probably eat something. When was the last time you ate?”

Nao thinks back. It was when he and Natsuya were in the break room earlier.

“Go eat,” Natsuya says before Nao can answer. “I don’t care what it is, just eat before you go to bed.”

Nao huffs and looks into his fridge to find something. He has just decided to make a sandwich when he notices that Natsuya is staring off into space.

“What are you thinking about?” he asks Natsuya.

Natsuya shrugs. “I don’t know. The crash. There’s nothing I can do about what happened, but the question of ‘what-if,’ y’know?”

Nao doesn’t say anything. Instead, he grabs a knife to cut his sandwich in half.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you upset.”

“Why are you really here?” Nao asks, setting his knife down.

Natsuya sighs. He rests his chin on his hand and leans his elbow on the arm of the couch. “I was worried about you. You’re my friend.”

“You don’t do this for all of your friends though,” Nao points out.

Natsuya scoffs. “Well, maybe not. But we’re close. I think that counts for something.”

Nao grabs his plate and sits on the opposite end of the couch. “I guess it does.”

“Do you feel any better?” Natsuya asks. He shifts his position to sit with his legs crossed, facing Nao.

Nao nods. “Yeah. Maybe. I don’t know.”

“That’s okay,” Natsuya says. “Things will be better tomorrow.”

Nao smiles softly. “Yeah. Sounds good.” He gets up from the couch and puts his plate down in the sink. He says goodnight to Natsuya before getting ready for bed, and Natsuya says goodnight as well.

Nao decides to take a shower. It was supposed to be quick, but he ended up getting lost in his thoughts again. He lets the water scald his skin. By the time Nao has finished, he sees that Natsuya is already dead asleep. Nao shuts off the light and climbs into bed.

His mind is racing, and he can’t stop thinking. Natsuya manages to keep his head above water whenever things go wrong. Nao envies that. He envies Natsuya’s carefree attitude.

He also wishes that he could have all of his ducks in a row. He’s wanted that for a long time now. Since his parents were always gone growing up, Nao had to make sure that he was independent and capable of doing things on his own. With the way things have been going at Iwatobi, it’s as if all of the ducks have decided to stray from the pond and walk into the city where they could get run over by a car at any moment. It’s as if he’s cursed Iwatobi.

What a great analogy.

He wonders if things really will get better the way Natsuya says they will.

Nao sighs. He lies in the dark and lets his mind race until his alarm starts blaring. He feels just as tired as he was the day before.

“You’re awake,” Nao says when he heads into the kitchen. Natsuya is sitting at his kitchen table, eating a plate of eggs.

Natsuya nods. “Yeah. Eggs good.”

“I forgot I had those,” Nao says.

Natsuya waves him off. “Don’t worry about it, they’re not spoiled.” He takes another bite of them. “Even if they were, I’d still be able to eat them. I’ve eaten worse.”

Nao looks at him, confused. “You’re a doctor, you know how bad that is.”

Natsuya just shrugs and continues eating the eggs.

Nao looks in the fridge to see what kind of food he could make. He decides to make a packet of ramen, even though he already had one the other day. He’s conscious not to add too much seasoning in it so that it wouldn’t be as salty.

He sees that Natsuya left the dirty pan on the stove, and he frowns. He sets the pan in the sink, and that’s when he realizes he still has a plate from the night before still waiting to be washed. Nao abandons his ramen in order to wash the dishes.

Nao grabs a sponge and scrubs the dishes meticulously. A plate accidentally slips out of his hand, and it smashes. He sighs and tries to clean up the broken ceramic, grabbing an old plastic bag and some newspaper. Thankfully, everything is contained within the sink, saving him time.

“Need any help?” Natsuya asks.

Nao shakes his head. “I’m fine, it’s just a plate.” It’s embarrassing that he can’t wash a stupid plate without it shattering to pieces.

Natsuya doesn’t say anything else and washes his own plate before he sits down again. He’s scrolling through his phone now. Once Nao clears away the broken plate, he gets back to his ramen. After he lets it cool down, he joins Natsuya at the kitchen table.

They sit together quietly, save for Natsuya’s small laughs every few minutes. Natsuya drives them to work a while later, and they barely make it on time.

-

“Anything I can help you with?” Nao asks later that morning as he’s checking on the hospital.

Natsuya stops in his tracks and sighs. “One of my residents had to take off for a family emergency, and I’ve been scrambling to keep up with everyone.”

“I can help you,” Nao says. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Natsuya nods and continues walking, while Nao turns in the opposite direction to drop his things off in his locker before helping Natsuya.

Nao picks up one of the patient files left at reception and takes a look at it. Oikawa Tooru in Bay One. He’s a volleyball player.

He approaches the bay and greets Oikawa. “Oikawa-san, how can I help?”

“My knee hurts,” Oikawa grumbles.

“Have you been taking it easy like your doctor told you?” Nao asks. He turns to look at Oikawa when there isn’t an answer.

Oikawa huffs. “No.”

“Can I inspect it?” Nao asks, and Oikawa nods. He pulls off the knee brace, and the knee appears to be swelling. Oikawa winces when Nao pokes at it. “How far can you extend your knee?”

“Not very much,” Oikawa answers. “I’m fine though. It’ll get better in no time.”

“It won’t if you don’t rest it,” Nao says. He steps back and clicks his pen to start writing down information. There are a few diagnoses of what kind of injury this could be, but it’s better to scan and double-check before making any assumptions. “I’m sending you in for a CT scan. Hopefully, it isn’t too serious and you can get back to playing volleyball in no time.”

Oikawa folds his arms. “Thanks, Doctor….” He squints to look at Nao’s nametag. “Serizawa. Any relation to Serizawa Eito?”

“No,” Nao says sharply before Oikawa could say anything else, accidentally startling him. He turns away from Oikawa and heads back to reception to set the file there before picking up another one.

Natsuya stands behind him. “Is everything alright? Things seem tense with your patient over there.”

“I’m fine,” Nao says, faking a smile. “You don’t need to worry about me.” He takes a look at another patient’s file and heads to another bay to treat them.

Nao helps treat a handful of patients before he decides to take his lunch. Natsuya follows in ten minutes later.

“You’re not going to talk to me about what happened earlier?” he asks, folding his arms.

Nao takes his lunch out of the fridge and stirs it with chopsticks before placing it in the microwave. He sets a paper towel on top of it before closing the door and turning the microwave on. “Nope.” He has a reputation to uphold here at Iwatobi, so there’s no point in bringing up his past anymore. 

“You’ll tell me if something’s wrong though, right?” Natsuya asks. “Because you don’t normally act like this, and I’m a little bit worried.”

The microwave beeps and Nao opens the door to take his food out. He decides to eat in his office this time instead of the break room. “Natsuya, I’m fine,” Nao says before walking out of the break room. “Go worry about your other patients.”

Natsuya follows him. “Well, we’re friends, and friends worry about each other. Things have been stressful here lately, with the car accident and the Sano prisoners breaking out.” The door to Nao’s office almost slams on Natsuya, but he pushes it open. “You don’t need to deal with it on your own.”

Nao sits down at his desk. “I appreciate the concern, but I don’t need it. I just didn’t want to talk about my personal life with the patient.”

His parents have never been a comfortable subject to talk about. Nao has gotten asked this question almost every single day since he started working at Iwatobi. His father Eito runs a famous stocks company while his mother Noriko handles the legal aspect of it.

“I understand that, but - ” There’s a knock on the door that interrupts Natsuya.

Nao sighs. “Just open it, it’s probably one of the staff looking for me.”

Natsuya nods and opens the door. A tall woman wearing a business suit appears. She has lavender hair, not unlike Nao’s.

“How can I help you?” Nao asks, not bothering to look up from his food. He drops his chopsticks when he sees who it is. “I don’t allow outsiders to visit my office,” he says coldly.

“Well, that’s no way to treat your mother, is it?” the woman says. “Nao, dear, aren’t you glad to see me?”

“Hello, mother.” Nao could feel his blood boiling. He knew that his mother was bound to show up at some point. He didn’t think it would take her six years though. He ignores her question and puts the tupperware lid on top of his food. “What do you want?”

“Join me and your father for dinner, would you please?” she asks. “It would mean the world to us. We haven’t seen our son for ages.”

_ Well _ , Nao thinks bitterly. It wouldn’t have happened if they didn’t continuously tell him to find a rich wife when he came out to them. He’s old enough now, and he should be able to tell her no without feeling ashamed about it.

Nao opens his mouth to speak. He reminds himself that he can say no and that he doesn’t have to agree to his mother’s demands. He makes eye contact with her, and she stands there waiting for his response. Instead of saying no, Nao asks when the dinner is.

“Tonight! Six-thirty. The Marron,” she says, smiling brightly before walking out of the office. She shuts the door behind her.

Nao scoffs. “It’s as if she doesn’t know that a doctor’s hours could change at any moment.”

“Ah, I’m sorry,” Natsuya says, frowning.

Nao waves him off. “It’s fine, I’ll figure something out.” He decides that he doesn’t want to eat anymore, so he stands up to head out of his office and treat other patients in Neurology. Natsuya doesn’t follow him this time.

He works with Rei and Haruka for the meantime before making his way through the hospital and making sure all of the departments are running smoothly. Nao wonders if he should lie to his mother and tell her that he’s going to stay overnight.

_ No _ , he tells himself. Nothing good is going to come out of lying to his mother.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” a voice asks from behind him. “Your pen is bleeding over the patient report.”

Nao turns around to see Natsuya before looking down at the report again. Well shit. It’s fine, he can reprint it. He puts the report into the shredder after hitting the ‘print’ button on his computer. “I don’t know. I’m stressed out.”

“Is it about your mother?” Natsuya asks, even though he already knows that’s what he’s stressed about.

Nao nods. “Yeah.”

“I could offer support,” Natsuya says.

Nao shakes his head. “I don’t think I need it. I just…” he takes a deep breath. “She hasn’t talked to me in years, and it’s only because I’m working as a doctor. Even then, she hated the fact that I was going to med school instead of following in her and my father’s footsteps.”

“Oh.”

Nao laughs dryly. “Yeah, oh.”

“I mean, you could still show off at how you’re such a great doctor. You’re the medical director of Iwatobi, for fucks sake,” Natsuya says, winking. “Also, dinner sounds great.”

“You’re just hungry.”

Natsuya pouts. “Yeah, maybe. I also want to spite your parents since they sound like jerk bags.”

Nao stifles a laugh. The thought of bringing Natsuya to the family dinner and upsetting his parents sounds incredibly appealing, even if it’ll disrupt the rest of his evening. He mulls it over for a bit while filling out the report for the second time. Maybe it would be fun to shove it in his parents’ faces that he’s a successful doctor.

“Sure, why not,” Nao says. “Make yourself useful.” He puts the report into the patient’s file before walking back to his office to pack up for the day. 

“Hey! I’m always useful,” Natsuya retorts, following Nao.

-

Natsuya drives them to The Marron, and the two of them meet Nao’s parents.

The Marron is a nice restaurant. Not too fancy, but definitely not low-class either. Nao knows that his parents flaunt their wealth any way they can.

“Nao,” his father greets sternly. “Who is this?”

“His boyfriend, your honor,” Natsuya says, wrapping an arm around Nao. Nao flushes, and his father grimaces.

Both Nao and Natsuya take their seats across from them, and Natsuya picks up the menu in front of him. It’s a little bit awkward, but Natsuya looks over to Nao as if to silently remind him that he’s there for him.

Nao picks up his own menu, and debates on whether or not he should get the Chicken Katsu like he always does whenever he goes here. He’s not sure if he has the appetite or not. Nao is incredibly anxious as his parents stare down at both of him. His father’s glare is especially frightening, while his mother’s smile appears condescending.

He’s a full-grown adult, and he should be able to sit and talk to his parents without being afraid of them. He wants to talk about his achievements as a doctor without fear of judgement.

The four of them order their food and hand the menus to the waitress.

“So, Nao,” his father starts once the waitress leaves, and Nao gulps. “Have you ever thought about returning to the family business?”

Nao shakes his head. “I’m quite content with where I am.”

“A public hospital though? What purpose does that serve?” his mother laughs mockingly.

Nao forces himself to keep his composure, and Natsuya puts his hand on top of his. “I think public hospitals are a great idea. The prices of private healthcare keep rising and not many people can keep up.”

“If you can’t pay for healthcare, there’s no reason why ‘public hospitals’ should exist. Takes business away from hard-working doctors,” his mother reasons.

Natsuya scoffs. “Noriko - can I call you Noriko?” He doesn’t wait for her to respond. “Healthcare should be free for everyone. Not everyone is as rich as you are. Iwatobi Medical has tons of hard-working doctors too, and I can assure you that there’s no ‘business’ being taken away from the private hospitals.”

Perhaps Nao has underestimated how smart and cunning Natsuya is.

“Nao, I can’t believe your… whoever he is, is being rude to us,” his father says.

Nao musters up the courage to speak back to his father for what could possibly be the first time in his life. “He’s not being rude, he’s telling the truth.”

The conversation ends there, and the four of them sit in silence until the waitress comes back with their food.

“Well.” His mother claps her hands together. “Let’s eat, shall we?”

“Itadakimasu,” Nao mumbles before picking up his chopsticks and digging into his food.

It’s quiet throughout the meal, not unlike all of the other dinners that he’s had with his family over the years.

His father rests his elbows on the table a while later, after Nao and Natsuya have both finished their meals. “I hope you know that you’re always welcome to have your spot in the company back, despite your lifestyle.”

That’s when all hell breaks loose.

“Lifestyle?” Nao says incredulously. “Being gay isn’t a lifestyle. It’s not a choice either. I’m never going to settle down and find a wife, and I’m not going to quit being a doctor just to please the both of you.” His pride and the money it took for him to get his degree isn’t something he’s going to throw away so easily.

His mother tries to get him to calm down, but Nao isn’t having any of it.

“In the six years that I was in Canada, you didn’t call me. Not once, not even for my birthday or for Christmas,” Nao says. “You just want me as your corporate puppet.”

“Nao, you’re being extremely disrespectful,” his father scolds.

Nao ignores his father. “You didn’t show up to any of my graduations, claiming that your business is much more important,” he continues. He sighs, ready for this day to be over. “I’m going home, have fun with your sorry lives.”

His parents try to call for his attention, but he doesn’t mind them. Natsuya follows him outside, and he drives Nao home for the night.

The drive home is silent, except for the light rain. When they approach Nao’s apartment building, Nao leaves before Natsuya can say anything about the dinner.

-

Nao is in his office the next morning when Natsuya shows up knocking on his door.

“Hey,” Nao says, looking down at his paperwork. “Sorry I dragged you into the mess yesterday.”

He knows it’s his own fault that everything at the dinner went wrong. He definitely shouldn’t have snapped at his parents. How can he be expected to be in control of his life if he can’t control his actions?

Natsuya waves him off. “Nah, don’t worry about that. I volunteered to go, remember? If anything, I should be sorry for convincing you to go.”

Nao sighs. “Fine. I accept your apology. Now get back to work before people think I’m giving you special treatment.”

Natsuya blows a raspberry. “Okay, fine, I’ll see you later at lunch.”

Nao continues doing his paperwork when Natsuya leaves the office until Ikuya rushes in. Nao looks up from his papers and drops his pen.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

Ikuya is hyperventilating. “Samezuka - Samezuka’s cardiothoracic surgeon had a medical emergency and there’s about to be an influx of patients.”

A hospital can’t accept ambulances without a cardiothoracic surgeon, which is something that Nao knows all too well. Samezuka and Iwatobi have an agreement that in case something like this happens, their patients could go to the other hospital.

Nao gets up from his desk and follows Ikuya out to the emergency room, directing the EMTs and the paramedics to where the patients should go.

“There’s too many patients, we can’t feasibly keep up with this,” Ikuya says.

“We have to,” Nao answers. “Samezuka trusted us, we’ll be doing them a great favor.”

Ikuya frowns. “Why is there a shortage of cardiothoracic surgeons?”

“I really wish I knew, Ikuya,” Nao says.

Nao walks over to the cardiology department and checks up on Rin and Sousuke.

“How are you doing?” Nao asks.

Rin sighs, exhausted. “They’re mostly stable for now, I think I can manage.”

Sousuke nods in agreement.

Nao nods in acknowledgment before heading off to check on the other departments. It seems as though everyone can handle it, even though it’s one of their busier days. Nao makes an effort to try and help out however he can.

Nao’s on his way to radiology when a doctor stops him.

“Serizawa-san, there are too many patients waiting for me,” he complains. “Everyone’s starting to get antsy.”

Nao continues walking down the hall, and other doctors start walking toward him complaining that they can’t keep up. There’s not enough beds, the hospital is starting to run out of saline. A patient started to go into cardiac arrest.

“Just give me a moment to figure it out,” he snaps, and everyone turns back to their jobs.

_ It’s my fault _ , Nao thinks.  _ I shouldn’t have agreed to take all of their patients. Samezuka is twice as busy as Iwatobi only because it’s bigger. I should’ve noticed that the hospital is starting to fall apart _ .

_ It’s my fault. _

He can’t stop thinking about it, his mind is racing. Nao is stuck, he doesn’t know what to do. He just wants to help everyone, and yet, it backfired on him.

Nao feels dizzy and exhausted, his head hurts, and before he knows it, the world around him goes black.

-

He wakes up a short while later on the couch in his office. Natsuya is sitting on a chair beside him, half-asleep.

Nao then remembers that the state of the hospital is in distress. He quickly sits up, and Natsuya jolts awake.

“Hey, hey, calm down,” Natsuya says. “You’re okay, everything is fine.”

“But the hospital?” Nao asks.

Natsuya shakes his head. “You need to take care of yourself. The hospital is doing fine. I sent some of the patients to Sofuukan and the other hospitals around town. Ikuya’s helping me out too.”

“Thanks,” Nao says. Natsuya hands him a water bottle, and Nao takes a sip from it before giving it back to him. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Natsuya says. “Things have been stressful around here lately. And stop apologizing, it’s not your fault at all. Just try to take care of yourself better, okay?”

Nao nods, and he can feel tears streaming down his face. He can’t stop crying, and he buries his head in Natsuya’s chest.

Natsuya doesn’t say anything and wraps his arms around him. Nao lets himself be enveloped by Natsuya’s warmth, and the two of them sit there until Nao has calmed down.

“Let me take you home tonight,” Natsuya says. “I don’t want you taking the taxi this late.”

Nao nods, and the two of them walk down the hall in silence to get to the exit. He doesn’t bother arguing that it’s the third time Natsuya’s taken him home that week.

Natsuya opens the door for him, and they head outside. “It’s cold, isn’t it?” he remarks. He rubs his hands together and blows on them. “I don’t like cold weather very much. Sometimes I do, but when I was a traveling doctor in the states the cold weather sucked ass.”

“Canada was freezing,” Nao says. “This feels like a light breeze.”

Natsuya laughs. “Yeah.”

The two of them approach Natsuya’s familiar blue car, and he opens the door for Nao.

“Thanks.”

Natsuya just smiles brightly before going around the car to sit in the driver’s seat. He warms up the engine before looking behind him to check if there are any cars. He waits for them to pass before he backs up.

“Do you need my address again?” Nao asks, remembering all of the times that Natsuya’s been lost trying to get to Nao’s apartment.

Natsuya shakes his head. “I think I remember where it is. I drive you home a lot.”

Nao laughs. Natsuya’s not wrong about that. Nao wishes he could get a car though, so that he could stop relying on Natsuya and public transport so much.

Natsuya stops at a stop light and fiddles with the buttons in his car to play some music. It’s an unfamiliar tune, but it’s calming. Nao has always liked Natsuya’s music taste every time he plays something for him.

“Do you play any instruments?” Nao asks curiously, looking over at Natsuya. He’s focused on the road though.

“I do. I play guitar and some piano.” Natsuya lifts his foot off of the brake when the light turns green. “I’m not great at them but I can play well enough. Why? You want me to serenade you?”

Nao flushes and laughs softly. “No, it’s not that. I was just curious since you seem to like a lot of music.”

“Ah, yeah.” Natsuya laughs.

The sign for Nao’s apartment complex comes up, and Natsuya makes a left turn into the parking lot. He parks in one of the far rows and stops the car before putting the lever into park and taking the keys out.

“Do you feel better now?”

Nao nods. “Yeah, I think so. I’ll be fine to head to work tomorrow.”

Natsuya frowns. “You’re not going to work tomorrow. Dammit, I’ll stay and make sure you don’t work tomorrow.”

“I’m not?” Nao asks, frowning. “Natsuya, I need money. And what about my patients?” He supposes he could survive without money for a while, but he loves taking care of his patients.

“You need to  _ rest _ ,” Natsuya orders. “You should take a week off and like, sleep. Your patients aren’t going to hate you if you rest.”

Nao rolls his eyes. “Natsuya, that’s a very tall order you’re asking me. I can’t just  _ stop  _ working.”

Natsuya scoffs. “And look where it got you. You have vacation days and sick days, you should use them.”

Nao opens his mouth to speak but closes it again. He’s not wrong about that one. All of the doctors have three weeks of personal days for the year. Damn Natsuya for always being right. “But I’m the medical director.”

“I know that. And you’re a great director, Nao, but you won’t be able to treat patients properly if you’re overworking yourself to death. If you don’t want to take a week off, then take a day or two off instead, okay?” Natsuya puts an arm on Nao’s shoulder, and Nao puts his hand on top of his, nodding at him.

It’s… it’s a strange feeling, but Nao thinks it’s a good one.

“Okay. I’ll think about it,” Nao says before exiting the car and walking to the building. Natsuya follows closely behind.

He presses the button for the elevator and patiently waits for it to open before stepping inside. He waits for the elevator to reach his floor, and he steps out once it does. Nao walks down the end of the hall where his apartment is located.

Natsuya makes a phone call to payroll while Nao is in the shower, telling them that Nao’s going to be using one of his personal days for the year. 

The moment Nao’s head hits the pillow he’s knocked out like a light. Natsuya sleeps on the couch in the living room.


End file.
